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.
Sunshine South median real estate price is $386,918, which is more expensive than 42.7% of the neighborhoods in Florida and 51.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Sunshine South is currently $2,482, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 51.5% of Florida neighborhoods.
Sunshine South is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Lehigh Acres, Florida.
Sunshine South real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and mobile homes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Sunshine South neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 6.3% in Sunshine South. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 57.1% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
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 Lehigh Acres, the Sunshine South neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
If you like the look and ambience of new homes and newly built neighborhoods, you will love the Sunshine South neighborhood. A whopping 76.7% of the homes and other residential real estate here were built after 1999, which is a higher proportion of new homes then you will find in 96.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Everything here just feels new.
In addition, the Sunshine South neighborhood has earned the amazing distinction of having one of the highest rates of detached, single-family homes of any neighborhood in the U.S. With 97.5% of the residential real estate here made up of free-standing single-family homes, there is a greater proportion of single-family homes here than in 95.6% of all neighborhoods in America.
People
Single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the Sunshine South neighborhood about it; they already know. 17.2% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.0% of American neighborhoods. Further NeighborhoodScout research showed strong statistical correlations among high rates of children living in single parent households, and neighborhood crime, particularly violent crime, neighborhood poverty, and, importantly, the percentage of low weight births and rates of infant mortality.
Diversity
Did you know that the Sunshine South neighborhood has more Cuban and Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 17.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Cuban ancestry and 6.6% have Haitian ancestry.
Sunshine South is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 4.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Vietnamese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Sunshine South neighborhood in Lehigh Acres are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 61.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 4.5% 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 65.8% 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 Sunshine South neighborhood, 38.3% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 27.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (22.4%), and 11.5% 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 Sunshine South neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 45.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English, Vietnamese and French.
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 Sunshine South neighborhood in Lehigh Acres, FL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Cuban (17.3%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (10.9%), and residents who report Asian roots (7.5%), and some of the residents are also of Haitian ancestry (6.6%), along with some Puerto Rican ancestry residents (6.1%), among others. In addition, 36.7% 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 Sunshine South neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (37.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (81.1%) 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 (10.9%) . 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.
