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.
Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry median real estate price is $182,217, which is less expensive than 90.0% of Florida neighborhoods and 81.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry is currently $1,533, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 92.0% of Florida neighborhoods.
Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Ocklawaha, Florida.
Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry 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 Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry 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 Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 23.2%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 90.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Ocklawaha, the Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, if you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 8.5% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in Florida, 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 Florida.
Real Estate
The real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 99.0% of all neighborhoods in America, with 50.0% of the occupied housing here being classified as mobile homes. So if you are looking for a mobile home, or you like the look and feel of mobile home parks, this neighborhood might have the setting you desire.
Occupations
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 9.0% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 98.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 10.4% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.8% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood has more Armenian and Irish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Armenian ancestry and 23.1% have Irish 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 Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood in Ocklawaha are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 77.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. 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.
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 Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood, 23.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 23.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (23.1%), and 20.4% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood is English, spoken by 93.9% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (2.1%).
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 Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood in Ocklawaha, FL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (23.1%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (9.3%), and residents who report German roots (6.7%), and some of the residents are also of Armenian ancestry (5.3%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (5.2%), 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 Moss Bluff / Starkes Ferry neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (34.8% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods. However, there is also a significant group of residents (10.4%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (75.0%) 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 (13.3%) and 9.0% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.
