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.
Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo median real estate price is $618,173, which is more expensive than 90.8% of the neighborhoods in New Mexico and 73.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo is currently $2,241, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 84.0% of the neighborhoods in New Mexico.
Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo 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 Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo, the current vacancy rate is 1.2%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 90.2% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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
The Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood has a greater proportion of government workers living in it than 99.2% of the neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. This is a unique feature of this neighborhood, and one that shapes its character.
People
There is an especially high percentage of incarcerated people (1.7%) living in the Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood.
In addition, if you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 8.0% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in New Mexico, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in New Mexico.
Real Estate
Homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood's real estate landscape than 96.1% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 73.3% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer.
Diversity
Did you know that the Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood has more Swiss and Greek ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Swiss ancestry and 4.0% have Greek ancestry.
Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 7.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Langs. of India at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood in Santa Fe are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 71.5% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 4.8% 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 64.6% 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 Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood, 59.5% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions, with 20.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (18.1%), and 16.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood is English, spoken by 85.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Langs. of India.
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 Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood in Santa Fe, NM, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (21.9%). There are also a number of people of Spanish ancestry (14.4%), and residents who report English roots (13.4%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (7.7%), along with some German ancestry residents (6.6%), 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 Windmill Ridge / The Village at Rancho Viejo neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.8% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (60.1%) 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 (7.5%) . 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.
