Best PlacesCranberry Isles, ME Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Cranberry Isles, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. This page is for people who live here or already know they want to. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Cranberry Isles ranks 13,634th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on good schools by a wide margin, and an overheated housing market is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Cranberry Isles
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.
Cranberry Isles' strengths and weaknesses
Where Cranberry Isles ranks high
- School gradeA+, better than 99% of towns
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than 98% of towns
- QuietBetter than 97% of towns
- Short commute16.7 minutes each way, better than 95% of towns
- Healthcare accessBetter than 93% of towns
Where Cranberry Isles ranks low
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- State infrastructureBetter than only 9% of towns
- Low vacancyBetter than only 10% of towns
- Cell coverageBetter than only 14% of towns
- Big-city accessBetter than only 14% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Cranberry Isles
A household needs to earn about $123,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Cranberry Isles home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $69,375, 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 Cranberry Isles' effective rate of 0.83%, 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 Cranberry Isles
Cranberry Isles 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 Cranberry Isles.
Who works in Cranberry Isles, and how
Work in Cranberry Isles centers on hospitality & food and retail trade. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 77%
- Work from home 12%
- Transit, walk, or bike 11%
Life in Cranberry Isles
The coast is about 1 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Cranberry Isles, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Cranberry Isles, month by month
Cranberry Isles sees roughly 77 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 79 degrees. January highs sit near 35, with lows near 16. The comfortable stretch runs June through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 35° | 25° | 16° |
| April | 53° | 42° | 32° |
| July | 79° | 67° | 58° |
| October | 61° | 51° | 41° |
Flying in and out of Cranberry Isles
The nearest airport, Hancock County/Bar Harbor, is about 15 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is General Edward Lawrence Logan International, about 189 miles away.
The best schools in and around Cranberry Isles
Schools across Cranberry Isles average an A+, better than 99% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Cranberry Isles SchoolA+ · 75% proficient
Top high schools
- Mt Desert Island High SchoolA+ · 98% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Cranberry Isles school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Cranberry Isles 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 Cranberry Isles against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Cranberry Isles
Is Cranberry Isles a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Cranberry Isles ranks 13,634th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on good schools, cheap car insurance, and quiet, and lowest on an overheated housing market and state infrastructure. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Cranberry Isles expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $467,200. The overall cost of living runs about 11% above the national average. Set against a $69,375 median income, cost of living beats 22% of towns.
Is Cranberry Isles safe?
Cranberry Isles is safer than 49% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $297 per resident a year.
Compare Cranberry Isles with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Cranberry Isles. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Cranberry Isles 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.
Cranberry Isles detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Cranberry Isles: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Cranberry Isles: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Cranberry Isles: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Cranberry Isles: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Cranberry Isles 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.