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.
Valley Stream East median real estate price is $783,464, which is more expensive than 60.5% of the neighborhoods in New York and 83.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Valley Stream East is currently $4,272, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 79.5% of the neighborhoods in New York.
Valley Stream East is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Valley Stream, New York.
Valley Stream East 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 Valley Stream East neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
In Valley Stream East, the current vacancy rate is 2.7%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 82.2% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Valley Stream East is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The Valley Stream East neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Valley Stream East neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 16.1% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.9% of all neighborhoods in America.
People
If you're a regular supporter of the arts and enjoy outings to the theatre, weekend boutique-ing, or even a finely aged wine with dinner, than you're in good company with the people of the Valley Stream East neighborhood. This neighborhood is uniquely immersed with more "urban sophisticates" than 97.3% of neighborhoods across the country. The people here truly stand out as a class among their own. They are an exclusive community characterized by refined tastes, cultural inclinations, and the means to live well. Urban sophisticates live a big city lifestyle, whether or not they live in or near a big city. They are educated executives or managers by week, and serial patrons of the arts by weekend. If this lifestyle pertains to you, than you'll certainly feel right at home in the Valley Stream East neighborhood. In addition to being an excellent choice for urban sophisticates, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for college students and families with school-aged children.
Modes of Transportation
In the Valley Stream East neighborhood, 12.0% of people ride the train to work each day. This is a very high percentage compared to most places. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this is a higher level of train ridership than in 95.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
Occupations
From major sales accounts to fast-food workers, sales and service employees are often the backbone of the local economy. In the Valley Stream East neighborhood, they truly stand out. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis identifies this neighborhood as having a higher percentage of sales and service workers than 95.0% of all American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Valley Stream East neighborhood has more South American and Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 17.1% of this neighborhood's residents have South American ancestry and 5.0% have Haitian ancestry.
Valley Stream East is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Tagalog, which is the first language of the Philippine region, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Valley Stream East neighborhood in Valley Stream 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 93.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 2.2% 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 74.5% 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 Valley Stream East neighborhood, 37.9% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 35.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (14.1%), and 12.5% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Valley Stream East neighborhood is English, spoken by 53.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region) and French.
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 Valley Stream East neighborhood in Valley Stream, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as South American (17.1%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (16.5%), and residents who report Italian roots (11.8%), and some of the residents are also of Haitian ancestry (5.0%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (4.1%), among others. In addition, 37.0% 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 Valley Stream East neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (34.7% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods. However, there is also a significant group of residents (16.1%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (63.6%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (12.0%) and 8.4% 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.
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.
