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Real Estate Prices & Overview

Alto / Ponderosa Heights median real estate price is $381,799, which is more expensive than 73.5% of the neighborhoods in New Mexico and 52.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.

The average rental price in Alto / Ponderosa Heights is currently $1,307, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 69.3% of New Mexico neighborhoods.

Alto / Ponderosa Heights is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Alto / Ponderosa Heights real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and mobile homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.

Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Alto / Ponderosa Heights. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 68.7%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 99.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (54.2%). 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.

Real Estate

Despite all of the residential real estate here in the Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 68.7%, which is higher than 99.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.

Occupations

There are more people living in the Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (47.8%) 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.

Length of Commute

Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 68.6% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.

People

One of the unique characteristics of the Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 98.1% of the neighborhoods in America.

Car Ownership

Most American households own a car or other vehicle. Many own two cars or perhaps three. In the United States, it is useful to have an automobile not only for commuting, but also for shopping and getting to other services one needs. But NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that households in the Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 37.9% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 97.5% of the neighborhoods in the nation.

Diversity

Did you know that the Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood has more Eastern European and Scottish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Eastern European ancestry and 6.7% have Scottish 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 Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood in Ruidoso are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 98.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 3.3% 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 70.5% of America's neighborhoods.

A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.

In the Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood, 52.2% 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 27.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (11.8%), and 8.7% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 85.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.

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 Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood in Ruidoso, NM, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (40.6%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (16.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (7.8%), and some of the residents are also of Scottish ancestry (6.7%), along with some French ancestry residents (6.3%), among others.

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 Alto / Ponderosa Heights neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (68.6% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.

Here most residents (82.3%) 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 (7.0%) and 6.2% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.


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