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.
Four Corners / Hovey Corner median real estate price is $667,218, which is more expensive than 44.9% of the neighborhoods in Massachusetts and 77.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Four Corners / Hovey Corner is currently $2,444, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 72.5% of Massachusetts neighborhoods.
Four Corners / Hovey Corner is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Pepperell, Massachusetts.
Four Corners / Hovey Corner real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Four Corners / Hovey Corner neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
Real estate vacancies in Four Corners / Hovey Corner are 5.7%, which is lower than one will find in 60.8% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Four Corners / Hovey Corner 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
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
Wealth makes most things in life easier, and a few things harder. If you are wealthy and enjoy keeping up with the Jones', this neighborhood will interest you. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout's research, the Four Corners / Hovey Corner neighborhood is wealthier than 95.1% of the neighborhoods in the United States. Residents here are truly in a unique situation even when compared to other Americans, based on the sheer amount of wealth concentrated here. Even in times of economic downturn, residents of this neighborhood, as a group, suffered less and recovered more quickly. This is indeed a stand-out characteristic of this neighborhood. As one would expect in a considerably wealthy neighborhood such as this, Four Corners / Hovey Corner also has one of the lowest ratings of child poverty in the nation.
In addition, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, Four Corners / Hovey Corner is among the best neighborhoods for families in Massachusetts. In fact, this neighborhood is more family-friendly than 95.7% of neighborhoods in the entire state of Massachusetts. Its combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes gives this area the look and feel of a "Leave It to Beaver" episode. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a strong sense of community. In addition, the high number of college-educated parents influences the academic success of the local schools. Overall, you will find all of the amenities a family needs to thrive in the Four Corners / Hovey Corner neighborhood. In addition to being an excellent choice for families with school-aged children, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for urban sophisticates.
Diversity
Did you know that the Four Corners / Hovey Corner neighborhood has more Canadian and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Canadian ancestry and 5.8% have French Canadian ancestry.
Four Corners / Hovey Corner is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Portuguese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.3% 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 Four Corners / Hovey Corner neighborhood in Pepperell 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 95.1% 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 Four Corners / Hovey Corner neighborhood, 54.2% 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 20.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (15.2%), and 9.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Four Corners / Hovey Corner neighborhood is English, spoken by 94.8% of households. Some people also speak Polish (2.7%).
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 Four Corners / Hovey Corner neighborhood in Pepperell, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (18.1%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (15.4%), and residents who report German roots (9.4%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (8.1%), along with some French Canadian ancestry residents (5.8%), 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 Four Corners / Hovey Corner neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (34.9% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (75.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. 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.
