Best PlacesBay Head, NJ Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Bay Head, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Local pay runs high here, and housing takes the biggest bite out of it. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Bay Head ranks 5,693rd of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on health care access by a wide margin, and disaster risk is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Bay Head
BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.
Bay Head's strengths and weaknesses
Where Bay Head ranks high
- Healthcare accessBetter than 99% of towns
- BikingBetter than 99% of towns
- Household income$181,667 median, better than 99% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 99% of towns
- Cell coverageBetter than 98% of towns
Where Bay Head ranks low
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- State fiscal healthBetter than only 1% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,478 a month, better than only 4% of towns
- Nice weatherabout 60 pleasant days a year, better than only 8% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Bay Head
A household needs to earn about $485,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Bay Head home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $181,667, so buying stretches a typical household.
Where the monthly payment goes
Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Bay Head's effective rate of 0.77%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.
Renting versus buying
At today's prices and rents, renting stays cheaper than buying across the first 10 years here, so the case for buying rests on staying much longer or on prices rising faster than assumed. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Bay Head
Bay Head runs older than the country, and households here run smaller than average.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Bay Head.
Who works in Bay Head, and how
Work in Bay Head centers on finance & insurance and professional & technical. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 69%
- Work from home 18%
- Transit, walk, or bike 13%
Life in Bay Head
The coast is about 1 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Bay Head, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Bay Head, month by month
Bay Head sees roughly 60 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 88 degrees. January highs sit near 44, with lows near 26. The comfortable stretch runs May, June, and August through October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 44° | 34° | 26° |
| April | 64° | 53° | 42° |
| July | 88° | 77° | 68° |
| October | 70° | 59° | 49° |
Flying in and out of Bay Head
John F Kennedy International sits about 42 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 31.0 million passengers in 2025, with 249 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Bay Head
Schools across Bay Head average a B−, better than 59% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Bay Head ElementaryB− · 43% proficient
Top high schools
- Point Pleasant Beach High SchoolC+ · 40% proficient
- Point Pleasant Borough High SchoolC+ · 39% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Bay Head school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Bay Head measure by measure
Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Bay Head against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Bay Head
Is Bay Head a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Bay Head ranks 5,693rd of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on health care access, biking, and high incomes, and lowest on disaster risk and an overheated housing market. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Bay Head expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $1,864,000. The overall cost of living runs about 40% above the national average. Set against a $181,667 median income, cost of living beats 97% of towns.
Is Bay Head safe?
Bay Head is safer than 27% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $266 per resident a year.
Compare Bay Head with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Bay Head. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Bay Head represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.
Bay Head detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Bay Head: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Bay Head: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Bay Head: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Bay Head: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Bay Head detail on related sites:
- CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
- ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
- CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.
Federal and public data:
- U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
- NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
- FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
- FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
- U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
- FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
- CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
- National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
- FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
- Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.
Your priorities
Move a slider to say how much a measure matters. Zero turns it off.