Downtown Des Moines median real estate price is $348,585, which is more expensive than 82.0% of the neighborhoods in Iowa and 46.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Downtown Des Moines is currently $1,528, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 87.2% of the neighborhoods in Iowa.
Downtown Des Moines is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Des Moines, Iowa.
Downtown Des Moines real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Downtown Des Moines. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 16.2%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 81.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
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.
In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
In addition, one of the most interesting things about the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood is that it has a greater concentration of residents who live alone than most all neighborhoods in America. With 71.4% of the households here made up of people living alone, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this is a larger proportion of people living alone than in 99.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Downtown Des Moines neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 96.0% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.
In addition, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 93.5% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 98.7% of all neighborhoods in America.
Furthermore, renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 88.5%, which is higher than 96.4% of the neighborhoods in America. If you were to buy and live in the property you bought here, you would be almost alone in doing so.
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The Downtown Des Moines neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Residents of the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 61.3% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
In the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 11.9% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 96.0% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
The freedom of moving to new places versus the comfort of home. How much and how often people move not only can create diverse and worldly neighborhoods, but simultaneously it can produce a loss of intimacy with one's surroundings and a lack of connectedness to one's neighbors. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research has identified this neighborhood as unique with regard to the transience of its populace. In the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 97.4% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
Did you know that the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood has more Welsh and Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Welsh ancestry and 2.1% have Haitian ancestry.
Downtown Des Moines is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak African languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Downtown Des Moines neighborhood in Des Moines are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 74.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% of America's neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the Downtown Des Moines neighborhood, 69.1% 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 15.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (10.3%), and 5.1% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
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 Downtown Des Moines neighborhood is English, spoken by 86.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, French, African languages and Chinese.
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 Downtown Des Moines neighborhood in Des Moines, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (23.8%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (17.6%), and residents who report English roots (13.5%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (6.3%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (4.7%), among others.
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 Downtown Des Moines neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (61.3% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (62.0%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (11.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.