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.
Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas median real estate price is $399,381, which is more expensive than 44.8% of the neighborhoods in Florida and 55.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas is currently $2,643, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 49.6% of Florida neighborhoods.
Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Fort Myers, Florida.
Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas 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 Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 25.4%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 92.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (19.4%). 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
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.
Occupations
From major sales accounts to fast-food workers, sales and service employees are often the backbone of the local economy. In the Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood, they truly stand out. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis identifies this neighborhood as having a higher percentage of sales and service workers than 98.8% of all American neighborhoods.
People
If you are planning to retire in Florida, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in Florida, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 98.2% of neighborhoods in FL. If a Florida retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit. In addition to being an excellent choice for active retirees, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for first-time home buyers.
Real Estate
If you like the look and ambience of new homes and newly built neighborhoods, you will love the Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood. A whopping 83.9% 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 97.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Everything here just feels new. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 3.4% of residents in the Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 96.4% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Diversity
Did you know that the Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood has more Lithuanian and Russian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Lithuanian ancestry and 4.4% have Russian ancestry.
Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood in Fort Myers are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 48.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 3.5% 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 69.6% 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 Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood, 45.8% 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 executive, management, and professional occupations, with 38.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (11.0%), and 7.5% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
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 Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood is English, spoken by 84.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and German/Yiddish.
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 Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood in Fort Myers, FL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (28.7%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (18.9%), and residents who report Italian roots (12.7%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (8.7%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (8.0%), among others. In addition, 17.1% 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 Heritage Cove / Westwind Villas neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (35.7% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (79.6%) 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.
