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.
Orchard Heights median real estate price is $657,469, which is more expensive than 62.0% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey and 76.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Orchard Heights is currently $4,540, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 88.2% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey.
Orchard Heights is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in East Brunswick, New Jersey.
Orchard Heights real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Orchard Heights neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Real estate vacancies in Orchard Heights are 3.2%, which is lower than one will find in 78.9% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Orchard Heights is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
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
Owner-occupied real estate dominates the Orchard Heights neighborhood. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout research, the percentage of residential real estate occupied by its owner is higher here than in 98.9% of neighborhoods in America.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The Orchard Heights neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Orchard Heights neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 11.5% 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 96.8% of all neighborhoods in America.
People
If you're a regular supporter of the arts and enjoy outings to the theatre, weekend boutique-ing, or even a finely aged wine with dinner, than you're in good company with the people of the Orchard Heights neighborhood. This neighborhood is uniquely immersed with more "urban sophisticates" than 96.5% of neighborhoods across the country. The people here truly stand out as a class among their own. They are an exclusive community characterized by refined tastes, cultural inclinations, and the means to live well. Urban sophisticates live a big city lifestyle, whether or not they live in or near a big city. They are educated executives or managers by week, and serial patrons of the arts by weekend. If this lifestyle pertains to you, than you'll certainly feel right at home in the Orchard Heights neighborhood. In addition to being an excellent choice for urban sophisticates, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for families with school-aged children.
Diversity
Did you know that the Orchard Heights neighborhood has more Ukrainian and Hungarian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Ukrainian ancestry and 2.7% have Hungarian ancestry.
Orchard Heights is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Russian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.6% 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 Orchard Heights neighborhood in East Brunswick 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 92.0% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.7% 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 79.7% 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 Orchard Heights neighborhood, 56.1% 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 20.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (12.6%), and 11.4% 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 Orchard Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 55.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Spanish, Langs. of India and Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the Orchard Heights neighborhood in East Brunswick, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (32.6%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (13.8%), and residents who report Italian roots (11.8%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (8.4%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (7.1%), among others. In addition, 28.7% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Orchard Heights neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (27.5% 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 (11.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (62.9%) 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 (12.8%) . 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.
