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.
Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow median real estate price is $465,821, which is more expensive than 92.3% of the neighborhoods in Iowa and 60.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow is currently $2,071, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 98.7% of the neighborhoods in Iowa.
Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Ames, Iowa.
Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow 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 Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow, 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 Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow 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 Ames, the Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
This neighborhood has the distinction of having one of the lowest real estate vacancy rates of any neighborhood in America. With just 0.0% of the real estate vacant, this indicates an exceptionally strong demand for real estate in the Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood, and/or an issue with creating enough supply for the demand. This could have the effect of increasing real estate prices, increasing supply to meet demand, or both.
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 Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood could be your paradise. With 29.2% 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 3.5% of U.S. neighborhoods have more row houses than this neighborhood, making it one of the most interesting things about this special neighborhood.
People
If you are planning to retire in Iowa, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in Iowa, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 98.2% of neighborhoods in IA. If a Iowa retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit. In addition to being an excellent choice for active retirees, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for highly educated executives and urban sophisticates.
In addition, some neighborhoods have residents that are more educated than others. But in this neighborhood there is a dramatic difference. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that 42.8% of the adults here have earned a Masters degree, medical degree, Ph.D. or law degree. This is a higher rate of people with a graduate degree than is found in 97.8% of U.S. neighborhoods, where the average American neighborhood has 13.7% of its adults with a graduate degree. If you are highly educated, you may have much in common with many of your neighbors here.
Also, astoundingly, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this single neighborhood has a higher concentration of married couples living here than 96.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Whether they have school-aged children or not, married couples are the rule in the Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood. If you are a married couple, you may find many people here with a similar lifestyle, and perhaps common interests. But if you are single, you might not find many other singles here.
Diversity
Did you know that the Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood has more Danish and Swiss ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Danish ancestry and 2.5% have Swiss ancestry.
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 Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood in Ames are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 75.3% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.4% 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 80.0% of America's neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood, 62.1% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 16.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (14.9%), and 6.4% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood is English, spoken by 87.0% of households. Some people also speak French (2.7%).
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 Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood in Ames, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (30.6%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (17.2%), and residents who report Mexican roots (8.0%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (6.6%), along with some Danish ancestry residents (6.3%), among others. In addition, 10.2% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in Bloomington Heights / Top-O-Hollow neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (42.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (71.0%) 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 (8.1%) . 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.
