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.
Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW median real estate price is $370,977, which is more expensive than 39.2% of the neighborhoods in Florida and 51.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW is currently $2,537, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 53.9% of Florida neighborhoods.
Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Palm Bay, Florida.
Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW 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 Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 6.6% in Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 56.1% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
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 Palm Bay, the Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Car Ownership
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 Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 49.6% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 99.6% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
Real Estate
Owner-occupied real estate dominates the Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout research, the percentage of residential real estate occupied by its owner is higher here than in 97.5% of neighborhoods in America.
In addition, some neighborhoods are made up of apartments. Some consist of row houses, and most - by far - consist of a mixture of housing types. But the Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood stands out due to the total dominance of detached, single-family homes here. There are nearly no other types of residential real estate in the neighborhood. In fact, this neighborhood has a higher proportion of single-family homes in its real estate stock than 96.5% of all American neighborhoods.
People
The Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood is a great option for families, as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's research on this neighborhood. The combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes, make this neighborhood among the top 7.3% of family-friendly neighborhoods in the state of Florida. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a sense of community. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools. In addition to being an excellent choice for families with school-aged children, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for college students.
Diversity
Did you know that the Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood has more Jamaican and English ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 11.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Jamaican ancestry and 27.0% have English ancestry.
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 Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood in Palm Bay are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 61.0% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 9.8% 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 51.3% 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 Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood, 32.7% 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 32.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (23.3%), and 12.0% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood is English, spoken by 84.0% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (14.2%).
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 Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood in Palm Bay, FL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (27.0%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (13.6%), and residents who report Jamaican roots (11.4%), and some of the residents are also of Puerto Rican ancestry (7.4%), along with some German ancestry residents (4.9%), 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 Americana Blvd NW / Ontario St NW neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (86.7%) 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 (7.6%) . 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.
