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.
Heather Ridge Estates median real estate price is $664,046, which is more expensive than 91.0% of the neighborhoods in Texas and 77.0% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Heather Ridge Estates is currently $2,617, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 86.4% of the neighborhoods in Texas.
Heather Ridge Estates is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Richardson, Texas.
Heather Ridge Estates 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 occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
In Heather Ridge Estates, 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 Heather Ridge Estates 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 Richardson, the Heather Ridge Estates 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 Heather Ridge Estates 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.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the Heather Ridge Estates community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, do you like to read, write, and learn? Are you curious about the world? If so, this neighborhood may be a good fit for you. NeighborhoodScout's research revealed that a full 76.1% of the adults living in the Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood have earned at least a bachelor's degree. This is a higher rate than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. In this way, this neighborhood truly stands out.
Also, if you are an executive or professional seeking a neighborhood affording an executive lifestyle, or just wanting to find where other executives live in the area, the Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood should be on your list. It has an enviable mix of spacious homes, relatively stable real estate values, and residents that include a number of wealthy executives, managers, and professionals. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis places it as one of the top 10.3% executive lifestyle neighborhoods in the state of Texas.
Modes of Transportation
In the Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 46.8% 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 99.7% 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.
Occupations
Executives, managers and professionals make up 81.0% of the workforce in the Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood which, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, is a higher proportion of such high-level people than is found in 99.1% of the neighborhoods in America. For this reason, this neighborhood really stands out as unique.
Diversity
Did you know that the Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood has more Asian and Jamaican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 43.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Asian ancestry and 4.8% have Jamaican ancestry.
Heather Ridge Estates is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Urdu, which is the national language of Pakistan, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.1% 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 Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood in Richardson are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 77.1% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% 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 Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood, 81.0% 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 10.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (5.0%), and 3.4% 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 Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood is English, spoken by 60.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Langs. of India, Arabic and Urdu (the national language of Pakistan).
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 Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood in Richardson, TX, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (43.2%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (8.9%), and residents who report German roots (5.6%), and some of the residents are also of Jamaican ancestry (4.8%), along with some Arab ancestry residents (4.0%), among others. In addition, 35.9% 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 Heather Ridge Estates neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.0% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (48.6%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. 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.
