This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
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.
Wenham is a very small town located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 4,957 people and just one neighborhood, Wenham is the 254th largest community in Massachusetts.
Wenham home prices are not only among the most expensive in Massachusetts, but Wenham real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.
Occupations and Workforce
Wenham is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 92.54% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Wenham is a town of sales and office workers, professionals, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Wenham who work in sales jobs (18.93%), management occupations (18.48%), and teaching (10.56%).
Also of interest is that Wenham has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 21.84% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.
Setting & Lifestyle
Because of many things, Wenham is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Wenham really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Wenham perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.
In Wenham, a lot of people use the subway to get to work every day though Wenham is a relatively small town. Those that ride the subway are primarily traveling out of town to good jobs in other cities.
Demographics
Do you have a 4-year college degree or graduate degree? If so, you may feel right at home in Wenham. 71.26% of adults here have a 4-year degree or graduate degree, whereas the national average for all cities and towns is just 21.84%.
The per capita income in Wenham in 2022 was $61,511, which is upper middle income relative to Massachusetts, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $246,044 for a family of four.
The people who call Wenham home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Wenham residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Wenham include Irish, English, Italian, German, and French.
The most common language spoken in Wenham is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Chinese.
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.
People
If you come to know the people here, you will recognize that you're in the company of one of the wealthiest communities in the nation. In fact, a mere 2.6% of America's neighborhoods are wealthier than the neighborhood. Real estate here is exceedingly well-maintained, and similarly, tends to maintain its value over time. The cars driven are mostly luxury brands like Mercedes, Audi, BMW, and Lexus. If the public schools aren't up to snuff, the residents of this neighborhood preferentially send their children to private preparatory schools. Vacation to Disney? Yes, but equally popular are summers in Europe. As one would expect in a considerably wealthy neighborhood such as this, also has one of the lowest ratings of child poverty in the nation.
In addition, neighborhoodScout's analysis shows that the neighborhood has a greater concentration of residents currently enrolled in college than 98.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. With 28.6% of the population here attending college, this is very much a college-focused neighborhood.
Also, the neighborhood is considered a solid choice for executive lifestyles. NeighborhoodScout's analysis ranks it as better than 90.3% of Massachusetts neighborhoods for executive living, based on the wealthy, educated professionals, executives, and managers who choose to reside here, the spacious homes that are prominent features of the real estate in the neighborhood, and the high real estate appreciation rates found here relative to other neighborhoods in the state. In addition to being an excellent choice for highly educated executives, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for college students and urban sophisticates.
Modes of Transportation
In the neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 10.5% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 95.1% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Canadian and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Canadian ancestry and 2.5% have French Canadian ancestry.
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 neighborhood in Wenham 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 97.4% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% of America'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 neighborhood, 52.9% 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 28.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (10.9%), and 7.5% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 92.1% of households.
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 neighborhood in Wenham, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (21.5%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (14.7%), and residents who report Italian roots (13.5%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (7.8%), along with some French ancestry residents (4.1%), 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 neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.0% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (56.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (10.5%) and 6.4% of residents also take the train 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.
