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.
Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates median real estate price is $592,211, which is more expensive than 67.8% of the neighborhoods in Maryland and 72.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates is currently $4,851, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 98.6% of the neighborhoods in Maryland.
Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in La Plata, Maryland.
Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and mobile homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Real estate vacancies in Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates are 4.4%, which is lower than one will find in 70.8% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
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 Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates 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 Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 17.9% 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 99.2% of all neighborhoods in America.
Occupations
The government often provides some of the more stable jobs in the economy. From local, to state, to federal government workers, the government can also be a major employer. What NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed, is that the Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood in particular stands out when compared nationally for the proportion of its working residents who are employed by the government. At 19.0% of its workforce, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of government workers than 98.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
One way that the Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood really stands out, is that it has more large 4, 5, or additional bedroom homes and real estate than 98.2% of the neighborhoods in America. When you walk or drive around this neighborhood, you'll instantly notice the size of the homes here which definitely makes a strong visual statement.
People
The Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates 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 9.7% of family-friendly neighborhoods in the state of Maryland. 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.
Migration / Stability
The freedom of moving to new places versus the comfort of home. How much and how often people move not only can create diverse and worldly neighborhoods, but simultaneously it can produce a loss of intimacy with one's surroundings and a lack of connectedness to one's neighbors. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research has identified this neighborhood as unique with regard to the transience of its populace. More residents of the Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 97.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
Diversity
Did you know that the Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood has more Jamaican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Jamaican ancestry.
Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.7% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.8% 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 Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood in La Plata 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 93.4% of the neighborhoods in America. With 16.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 62.2% of U.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 Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood, 48.5% 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 25.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions (19.0%), and 18.3% 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 Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood is English, spoken by 92.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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 Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood in La Plata, MD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (10.9%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (7.6%), and residents who report Irish roots (7.3%), and some of the residents are also of Jamaican ancestry (4.1%), along with some Sub-Saharan African ancestry residents (3.9%), 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 Pheasant Farm / Myrtle Grove Estates neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (45.4% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (67.2%) 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 (10.4%) and 5.8% of residents also ride the bus 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.
