Soma West median real estate price is $650,650, which is less expensive than 72.4% of California neighborhoods and 30.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Soma West is currently $4,501, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 81.4% of the neighborhoods in California.
Soma West is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in San Francisco, California.
Soma West 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 single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Soma West neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Soma West has a 15.3% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 79.8% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are 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.
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the Soma West neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 55.8% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The Soma West neighborhood is very densely populated compared to most U.S. neighborhoods. In fact, with 57,476 persons per square mile in the neighborhood, it is more packed with people than 98.7% of the nation's neighborhoods.
In addition, the real estate in the Soma West neighborhood really stands out in the way it looks for a unique reason: this neighborhood has a higher proportion of apartment complexes or high-rise apartments than nearly every neighborhood in the country. Most neighborhoods are a mixture of real estate and housing types, but here it is almost entirely dominated by big apartment buildings and complexes. In fact, 86.2% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 97.6% of American neighborhoods.
Furthermore, the Soma West 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 88.3% 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.
More people in Soma West choose to walk to work each day (21.5%) than almost any neighborhood in America. If you are attracted to the idea of being able to walk to work, this neighborhood could be a good choice.
Also, in the Soma West neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 34.2% of residents worked from home. This may not seem like a large number, but Scout's research shows that this is a higher percentage of people working from home than 97.2% of the neighborhoods in America. Often people who work from home are engaged in the creative or technological economy, such as is found in areas around Boston, and in Silicon Valley. Other times, people may be engaged in other businesses like trading stocks from home, or running a small beauty salon.
Finally, our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (12.3% ride the bus) than 96.4% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Did you know that the Soma West neighborhood has more Brazilian and Asian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Brazilian ancestry and 37.0% have Asian ancestry.
Soma West is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 6.2% 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 98.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the Soma West neighborhood. In the Soma West neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 96.3% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
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 Soma West neighborhood in San Francisco 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 88.7% of the neighborhoods in America. With 40.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 89.5% of U.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 Soma West neighborhood, 63.6% 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 18.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (12.4%), and 5.7% 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 Soma West neighborhood is English, spoken by 60.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the Soma West neighborhood in San Francisco, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (37.0%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (9.2%), and residents who report German roots (7.3%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (6.2%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (5.2%), among others. In addition, 34.4% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Soma West neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (48.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (21.5%) hop out the door and walk to work to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (13.4%) and 12.3% of residents also ride the bus for their daily commute. This is a special neighborhood for the number of people who walk to work. Combining exercise, low cost, and reduced pollution, plus the chance to see your neighbors, walking to work is fairly uncommon in America but likely to increase as people try to reduce their dependence on automobiles, and this neighborhood offers that opportunity today.
