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.
Forest Lake South median real estate price is $526,220, which is more expensive than 83.5% of the neighborhoods in Minnesota and 68.2% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Forest Lake South is currently $2,026, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 67.9% of the neighborhoods in Minnesota.
Forest Lake South is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Forest Lake, Minnesota.
Forest Lake South real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Forest Lake South neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Forest Lake South, the current vacancy rate is 0.0%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 100.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Forest Lake South is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Forest Lake, the Forest Lake South neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
With a real estate vacancy rate of only 0.0%, the Forest Lake South neighborhood has a lower vacancy rate than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods, a very elite group. Such a low vacancy rate may indicate very strong real estate demand in the neighborhood combined with some impediments to increasing supply, such as zoning or existing density of development, among other potential reasons.
In addition, many people dream of living along a street lined with row houses or other attached homes. Such places do often have an abundance of charm. If you are one of these people, the Forest Lake South neighborhood could be your paradise. With 31.3% of the homes and real estate here classified as rowhouses or other attached homes, this neighborhood brims with opportunity to find the right place for you. Only 3.1% of U.S. neighborhoods have more row houses than this neighborhood, making it one of the most interesting things about this special neighborhood.
Furthermore, homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the Forest Lake South neighborhood's real estate landscape than 95.6% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 69.1% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer.
Diversity
Did you know that the Forest Lake South neighborhood has more Swedish and Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Swedish ancestry and 6.1% have Norwegian ancestry.
Forest Lake South is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 6.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.6% 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 Forest Lake South neighborhood in Forest Lake are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 76.1% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 2.0% 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 75.3% 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 Forest Lake South neighborhood, 43.6% 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 20.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (19.5%), and 16.0% 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 Forest Lake South neighborhood is English, spoken by 90.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish, Spanish and Italian.
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 Forest Lake South neighborhood in Forest Lake, MN, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (33.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (9.4%), and residents who report Swedish roots (7.9%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (7.5%), along with some Norwegian ancestry residents (6.1%), among others.
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 Forest Lake South neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (35.4% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (73.0%) 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 (8.5%) . 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.
