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.
Maple Island / Sandy Beach median real estate price is $459,575, which is more expensive than 76.1% of the neighborhoods in Michigan and 56.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Maple Island / Sandy Beach is currently $2,048, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 78.8% of the neighborhoods in Michigan.
Maple Island / Sandy Beach is a remote neighborhood (based on population density) located in Dowagiac, Michigan.
Maple Island / Sandy Beach real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Maple Island / Sandy Beach. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 44.2%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 98.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (42.2%). 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
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
People
In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
Modes of Transportation
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the Maple Island / Sandy Beach (37.0%) than in 99.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
Real Estate
Despite all of the residential real estate here in the Maple Island / Sandy Beach 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 44.2%, which is higher than 98.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, some neighborhoods are made up of apartments. Some consist of row houses, and most - by far - consist of a mixture of housing types. But the Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood stands out due to the total dominance of detached, single-family homes here. There are nearly no other types of residential real estate in the neighborhood. In fact, this neighborhood has a higher proportion of single-family homes in its real estate stock than 95.6% of all American neighborhoods.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood buck this trend. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 37.7% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 97.4% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
Diversity
Did you know that the Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood has more Hungarian and Native American ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Hungarian ancestry and 1.9% have Native American ancestry.
Maple Island / Sandy Beach is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. In the Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 96.5% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
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 Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood in Dowagiac are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 54.4% 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 Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood, 40.3% 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 27.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (22.7%), and 8.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood is English, spoken by 94.0% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (2.5%).
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 Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood in Dowagiac, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (25.8%). There are also a number of people of Polish ancestry (9.3%), and residents who report English roots (8.0%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (7.8%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (4.3%), 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 Maple Island / Sandy Beach neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (58.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (57.8%) 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 (37.0%) . 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.
