Best PlacesFife, WA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Fife, 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.
Fife ranks 14,778th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on biking by a wide margin, and noise is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Fife
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.
Fife's strengths and weaknesses
Where Fife ranks high
- BikingBetter than 99% of towns
- TransitBetter than 98% of towns
- Cell coverageBetter than 96% of towns
- WalkabilityBetter than 95% of towns
- Health outlookBetter than 94% of towns
Where Fife ranks low
- QuietBetter than only 6% of towns
- Healthcare accessBetter than only 6% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 7% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,327 a month, better than only 8% of towns
- State infrastructureBetter than only 13% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Fife
A household needs to earn about $143,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Fife home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $102,678, 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 Fife's effective rate of 0.84%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.
Renting versus buying
At today's prices, buying tends to cost more than renting for about the first 9 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Fife
Fife runs younger than the country, and households here run larger than average.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Fife.
Who works in Fife, and how
Work in Fife centers on health care & social and retail trade. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 84%
- Work from home 12%
- Transit, walk, or bike 4%
Life in Fife
Fife has more restaurants and bars per resident than 89% of towns and more parkland per resident than 86% of towns. The coast is about 7 minutes away. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Fife and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Fife, month by month
Fife sees roughly 84 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 81 degrees. January highs sit near 49, with lows near 32. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 49° | 40° | 32° |
| April | 62° | 49° | 37° |
| July | 81° | 67° | 51° |
| October | 63° | 51° | 40° |
Flying in and out of Fife
Seattle-Tacoma International sits about 15 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 25.4 million passengers in 2025, with 172 nonstop destinations.
Fife 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 Fife against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Fife
Is Fife a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Fife ranks 14,778th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on biking, transit, and cell coverage, and lowest on noise and thin health care access. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Fife expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $542,490. The overall cost of living runs about 10% above the national average. Set against a $102,678 median income, cost of living beats 65% of towns.
Is Fife safe?
Fife is safer than 28% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $600 per resident a year.
Compare Fife with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Fife. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Fife 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.
Fife detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Fife: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Fife: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Fife: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Fife: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Fife 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.