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.
Fortuna Heights median real estate price is $45,081, which is less expensive than 98.2% of Arizona neighborhoods and 99.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Fortuna Heights is currently $2,128, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 59.3% of Arizona neighborhoods.
Fortuna Heights is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Yuma, Arizona.
Fortuna Heights real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) mobile homes and single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Fortuna Heights 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.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Fortuna Heights. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 41.1%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 97.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (41.1%). This can occur in vacation areas, and occasionally it is also found in neighborhoods that are primarily filled with college students, as some apartments could be vacant when school is not in session. If you live here year round, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
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
There are more people living in the Fortuna Heights neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (27.2%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
Real Estate
The Fortuna Heights neighborhood stands out for having the majority of its residential real estate made up of mobile homes. In fact, 87.5% of the occupied real estate here are mobile homes, which is a greater proportion than is found in 100.0% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. If you like mobile homes, this might be a great neighborhood in which to look for real estate.
In addition, vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 41.1% of the residential real estate vacant, the Fortuna Heights neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 97.7% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
Furthermore, the Fortuna Heights neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 82.2% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the Fortuna Heights neighborhood stands out by having 100.0% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.9% of all American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Fortuna Heights neighborhood has more Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Canadian ancestry.
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 Fortuna Heights neighborhood. In the Fortuna Heights neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 96.6% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
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 Fortuna Heights neighborhood in Yuma are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 86.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 38.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 87.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the Fortuna Heights neighborhood, 72.8% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 17.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (6.8%), and 3.7% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Fortuna Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 70.9% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (27.4%).
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 Fortuna Heights neighborhood in Yuma, AZ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (36.6%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (9.9%), and residents who report German roots (6.3%), and some of the residents are also of Norwegian ancestry (3.5%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (3.3%), among others. In addition, 12.2% 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 Fortuna Heights neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (49.7% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (100.0%) 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.
