Best PlacesBay View, WA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Bay View, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. The coast is close, and the measures below put a number on how close. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Bay View ranks 13,745th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on clean air by a wide margin, and childcare costs are the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Bay View
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 View's strengths and weaknesses
Where Bay View ranks high
- Air qualityBetter than 98% of towns
- Health outlookBetter than 91% of towns
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than 86% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 86% of towns
- Nice weatherabout 128 pleasant days a year, better than 84% of towns
Where Bay View ranks low
- Cheap childcare$1,516 a month, better than only 2% of towns
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 4% of towns
- State infrastructureBetter than only 13% of towns
- QuietBetter than only 14% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 14% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Bay View
A household needs to earn about $211,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Bay View home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $95,455, 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 View's effective rate of 0.78%, 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 View
Bay View runs older than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Bay View.
Who works in Bay View, and how
Work in Bay View centers on retail trade and education. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 84%
- Work from home 6%
- Transit, walk, or bike 11%
Life in Bay View
The coast is about 6 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Bay View, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Bay View, month by month
Bay View sees roughly 128 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 77 degrees. January highs sit near 48, with lows near 37. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 48° | 41° | 37° |
| April | 60° | 50° | 43° |
| July | 77° | 64° | 53° |
| October | 60° | 52° | 45° |
Flying in and out of Bay View
The nearest airport, Bellingham International, is about 21 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Seattle-Tacoma International, about 72 miles away.
Bay View 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 View against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Bay View
Is Bay View a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Bay View ranks 13,745th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on clean air, population health, and low taxes, and lowest on childcare costs 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 View expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $809,658. The overall cost of living runs about 11% above the national average. Set against a $95,455 median income, cost of living beats 63% of towns.
Is Bay View safe?
Yes, Bay View is safer than 70% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $331 per resident a year.
Compare Bay View with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Bay View. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Bay View 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 View detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Bay View: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Bay View: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Bay View: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Bay View: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Bay View 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.