What do we mean by a neighborhood?
NeighborhoodScout® uses the official government designation for neighborhoods - the census tract.
Census tracts are small, relatively permanent subdivisions of a county that are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with local authorities all across the country to define real neighborhoods that are bounded to contain areas with homogeneous population characteristics (including economic status, lifestyle, and living conditions). Census tracts usually have 4,000 persons, but can range between 1,500 and 8,000 persons. This is the most fine-grained area for which detailed information is made available from the government, to protect the individual privacy of each of us. Because census tracts are based on population, they vary in size depending on the density of settlement. In urban areas, they are small, and in rural areas they can cover an entire small town or even a few small towns in very rural areas.
Since census tracts are subdivisions of a county, we did a spatial overlay of the census tracts onto city and town boundaries using a geographic information system to properly assign each census tract to its appropriate city or town. Then we named each census tract to the local colloquially recognized neighborhood name for that spot (e.g., Boston, MA (Dorchester). If there was not a name available, we named the census tract by the largest street intersection in the census tract (e.g., Worcester, MA (Lincoln St/Plantation St)
Why we don't use Zip Codes as neighborhoods
Zip codes were developed by the Postal Service for the purpose of delivering mail, but were never intended to define coherent neighborhoods. In addition, Zip Codes can have as many as 10 distinctly different census tracts contained within them. When distinct census tracts are blended together in a single Zip Code, the data reflects their average conditions and often gives a false sense of the area. The result is that potentially great matching neighborhoods can be missed, and erroneous matches can also be produced and delivered to you.
Using census tracts makes great matches possible, and helps people find the areas that are best for them and their families. Because we are committed to providing the highest possible quality and finding the neighborhoods that best meet your criteria, we use census tracts. And, as always, we show you the actual street map of the neighborhood so you know exactly where your best matching neighborhood is located.
What is a Condition Alert?
A condition alert is a condition in the neighborhood that triggers an alert. NeighborhoodScout contains condition alerts to highlight conditions that are extreme, whether good or bad. This helps answer crucial questions about the state of the neighborhood being evaluated, such as:
What are the risks of violent crime here?
Is the risk of home break-ins or other property crimes increasing?
Does real estate here hold its value?
Are the trends in local vacancies or unemployment concerning?
...and dozens more.
Information at a glance that you need to know to invest, appraise or finance a property.
Watts Mills / Wattsville median real estate price is $84,875, which is less expensive than 94.0% of South Carolina neighborhoods and 96.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Watts Mills / Wattsville is currently $1,334, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 75.7% of South Carolina neighborhoods.
Watts Mills / Wattsville is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Laurens, South Carolina.
Watts Mills / Wattsville real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and mobile homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 8.2% in Watts Mills / Wattsville. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 45.9% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 57.2% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 99.7% of American neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
In the Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood, carpooling is still a popular way to get to and from work. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that 32.2% of commuters carpool here, which is more than in 99.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
People
The Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood is unique for having just 4.1% of adults here having earned a bachelor's degree. This is a lower rate of college graduates than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.9% of America's neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood has more Greek ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Greek ancestry.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood in Laurens are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 83.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 4.3% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 66.3% of America's neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood, 57.2% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 33.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (6.9%), and 2.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood is English, spoken by 79.5% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (14.6%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood in Laurens, SC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (9.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (8.4%), and residents who report Italian roots (3.3%), and some of the residents are also of Scots-Irish ancestry (2.0%), along with some English ancestry residents (1.8%), among others. In addition, 26.1% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in Watts Mills / Wattsville neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (36.5% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (66.5%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (32.2%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
SCOUT’s patented match algorithm identifies the most similar neighborhoods to a subject location, and quantifies the similarity to the subject location. This allows analysts to identify the most similar neighborhoods in a local market area for appraisals, investments, and research.
The algorithm uses 273 neighborhood conditions, identifies the dominant dimensions underlying the conditions and calculates the similarity. This captures the true culture and character of locations, economic conditions, and trends.
The closer to 100% means the locations are nearly identical. 80% is a very good, but not excellent match, and so forth.
