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.
Melrose Heights median real estate price is $680,921, which is more expensive than 79.5% of the neighborhoods in Florida and 77.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Melrose Heights is currently $2,258, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 62.8% of Florida neighborhoods.
Melrose Heights is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Miami, Florida.
Melrose Heights real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Melrose Heights neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Melrose Heights has a 11.4% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 68.5% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are empty.
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 Miami, the Melrose Heights neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the Melrose Heights (36.7%) than in 99.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (11.5% ride the bus) than 96.0% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the Melrose Heights neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 52.2% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 99.2% of American neighborhoods.
People
There is an especially high percentage of incarcerated people (2.2%) living in the Melrose Heights neighborhood.
Real Estate
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 Melrose Heights neighborhood could be your paradise. With 29.5% 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 3.4% of U.S. neighborhoods have more row houses than this neighborhood, making it one of the most interesting things about this special neighborhood.
Diversity
Did you know that the Melrose Heights neighborhood has more Cuban and South American ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 29.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Cuban ancestry and 10.6% have South American ancestry.
Melrose Heights is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 80.7% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Spanish at home. This is a higher percentage than 98.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Migration / Stability
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the Melrose Heights neighborhood. What is interesting to note, is that the Melrose Heights neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (56.8%) than are found in 98.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Melrose Heights neighborhood in Miami are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 93.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 23.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 74.6% 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 Melrose Heights neighborhood, 52.2% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 22.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (16.3%), and 6.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Melrose Heights neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 80.7% of households. Some people also speak English (19.3%).
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 Melrose Heights neighborhood in Miami, FL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Cuban (29.9%). There are also a number of people of South American ancestry (10.6%), and residents who report Puerto Rican roots (5.8%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (2.2%), along with some Dominican ancestry residents (1.5%), among others. In addition, 56.8% 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 Melrose Heights neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (32.5% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (46.6%) 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 (36.7%) and 11.5% 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.
