Water St / Birch St median real estate price is $371,852, which is less expensive than 90.2% of Massachusetts neighborhoods and 50.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Water St / Birch St is currently $1,857, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 91.5% of Massachusetts neighborhoods.
Water St / Birch St is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
Water St / Birch St real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) small apartment buildings and single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Water St / Birch St neighborhood are relatively historic, built no later than 1939, and in some cases, quite a bit earlier. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Water St / Birch St, the current vacancy rate is 2.6%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 81.6% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Water St / Birch St is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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.
Three-deckers, duplexes, old Victorian homes cut up into apartments. Independent stores on the corner selling pizza. These are some of the hallmarks of neighborhoods with lots of small 2, 3, and 4 unit apartment buildings. The Water St / Birch St neighborhood really stands out in this regard, however, as it is dominated by such small apartment buildings more than nearly any other neighborhood in America. This is a stunning visual and lifestyle example of this type of neighborhood. In fact, 39.7% of the real estate here are small 2, 3, or 4 unit apartment buildings, which is a higher proportion than found in 97.0% of America's neighborhoods.
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 Water St / Birch St neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 9.5% 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 95.0% of all neighborhoods in America.
Did you know that the Water St / Birch St neighborhood has more Puerto Rican and Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 36.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Puerto Rican ancestry and 2.4% have Canadian ancestry.
Water St / Birch St is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.6% 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 97.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Water St / Birch St neighborhood in Fitchburg are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 74.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 33.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 84.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the Water St / Birch St neighborhood, 37.9% 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 33.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (12.9%), and 12.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 Water St / Birch St neighborhood is English, spoken by 60.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
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 Water St / Birch St neighborhood in Fitchburg, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Puerto Rican (36.7%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (9.6%), and residents who report Italian roots (8.3%), and some of the residents are also of French ancestry (7.3%), along with some South American ancestry residents (5.4%), among others.
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 Water St / Birch St neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (38.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (9.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (78.1%) 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 (12.3%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.