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Real Estate Prices & Overview

Upper Center / Columbia median real estate price is $1,393,491, which is more expensive than 79.5% of the neighborhoods in California and 95.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.

The average rental price in Upper Center / Columbia is currently $4,634, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 85.0% of the neighborhoods in California.

Upper Center / Columbia is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Castro Valley, California.

Upper Center / Columbia real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.

In Upper Center / Columbia, the current vacancy rate is 2.2%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 85.3% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Upper Center / Columbia is very tight compared to the demand for property here.

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.

People

According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, Upper Center / Columbia is among the best neighborhoods for families in California. In fact, this neighborhood is more family-friendly than 98.3% of neighborhoods in the entire state of California. Its combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes gives this area the look and feel of a "Leave It to Beaver" episode. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a strong sense of community. In addition, the high number of college-educated parents influences the academic success of the local schools. Overall, you will find all of the amenities a family needs to thrive in the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood. In addition to being an excellent choice for families with school-aged children, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for urban sophisticates and highly educated executives.

In addition, wealth makes most things in life easier, and a few things harder. If you are wealthy and enjoy keeping up with the Jones', this neighborhood will interest you. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout's research, the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood is wealthier than 97.5% of the neighborhoods in the United States. Residents here are truly in a unique situation even when compared to other Americans, based on the sheer amount of wealth concentrated here. Even in times of economic downturn, residents of this neighborhood, as a group, suffered less and recovered more quickly. This is indeed a stand-out characteristic of this neighborhood.

Modes of Transportation

If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 3.1% of residents in the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 96.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.

Diversity

Did you know that the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood has more Yugoslav and Portuguese ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Yugoslav ancestry and 3.2% have Portuguese ancestry.

Upper Center / Columbia is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 18.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Chinese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.1% of the neighborhoods in America.

The Neighbors

There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.

The neighbors in the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood in Castro Valley are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 97.5% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 7.3% 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 57.9% of America's neighborhoods.

A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.

In the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood, 58.9% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional 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 17.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (12.9%), and 10.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood is English, spoken by 72.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese and Spanish.

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 Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood in Castro Valley, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (28.2%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (9.6%), and residents who report Irish roots (9.1%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (8.9%), along with some German ancestry residents (8.3%), among others. In addition, 18.8% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.

Getting to Work

How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (27.9% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.

Here most residents (65.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (6.9%) and 5.1% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


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