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.
Brooks Park median real estate price is $411,605, which is less expensive than 88.7% of California neighborhoods and 44.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Brooks Park is currently $2,554, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 72.9% of California neighborhoods.
Brooks Park is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Merced, California.
Brooks Park 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 occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Brooks Park neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Real estate vacancies in Brooks Park are 3.2%, which is lower than one will find in 78.7% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Brooks Park 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
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.
Occupations
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the Brooks Park neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 99.2% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Real Estate
The Brooks Park neighborhood has earned the amazing distinction of having one of the highest rates of detached, single-family homes of any neighborhood in the U.S. With 98.9% of the residential real estate here made up of free-standing single-family homes, there is a greater proportion of single-family homes here than in 97.4% of all neighborhoods in America.
In addition, if you like the look and ambience of new homes and newly built neighborhoods, you will love the Brooks Park neighborhood. A whopping 69.4% of the homes and other residential real estate here were built after 1999, which is a higher proportion of new homes then you will find in 95.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Everything here just feels new.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Brooks Park neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 9.6% 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 95.0% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Brooks Park neighborhood has more Mexican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 74.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Mexican ancestry.
Brooks Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Portuguese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.9% 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 Brooks Park neighborhood in Merced are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 60.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 34.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 85.1% 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 Brooks Park neighborhood, 29.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 26.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (17.9%), and 14.1% 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 Brooks Park neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 61.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English and Portuguese.
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 Brooks Park neighborhood in Merced, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (74.6%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (14.0%), and residents who report German roots (2.5%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (1.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (1.2%), among others. In addition, 35.5% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Brooks Park neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (28.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (9.6%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (87.4%) 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 (7.3%) . 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.
