Best PlacesFox Island, WA Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Fox Island, 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.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Fox Island ranks 1,438th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on high incomes by a wide margin, and childcare costs are the weak spot.

#1,438
of 50,333 towns
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 50,333 towns
Your rank
Set your priorities to see your rank

The best neighborhoods in Fox Island

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Fox Island area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
Colorblind friendly off
Popular priorities:

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.

Fox Island's strengths and weaknesses

#1438Best US town overall
Top 3%High incomes
Top 5%What local pay buys
Top 5%Civic engagement
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Fox Island with other towns.

Where Fox Island ranks high

  • Household income$160,036 median, better than 98% of towns
  • Cost of living vs incomeBetter than 96% of towns
  • Voter turnoutBetter than 96% of towns
  • Air qualityBetter than 95% of towns
  • Educational attainmentBetter than 93% of towns

Where Fox Island ranks low

  • Cheap childcare$1,327 a month, better than only 8% of towns
  • Housing crash safetyBetter than only 11% of towns
  • Short commute35.9 minutes each way, better than only 12% of towns
  • State infrastructureBetter than only 13% of towns
  • Disaster safetyBetter than only 28% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Fox Island

A household needs to earn about $277,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Fox Island home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $160,036, so buying stretches a typical household.

Income to buy the median home
$277,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$6,462
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $1,067,216 home

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$5,441
Property tax$665
Homeowners insurance$356

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 Fox Island's effective rate of 0.75%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.


Who lives in Fox Island

Fox Island runs older than the country.

Median age
53
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
27%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.4
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1817%
18 to 3411%
35 to 4920%
50 to 6425%
65 and older26%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Fox Island.


Who works in Fox Island, and how

Work in Fox Island centers on retail trade and health care & social. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
24%
above the national average
Unemployment
3.6%
below the national average
Job growth
+4.6%
/y 2019-2023, faster than the national pace

Largest industries

Retail trade13%
Health care & social13%
Public administration12%
Professional & technical10%
Wholesale trade10%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 68%
  • Work from home 24%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 7%

Life in Fox Island

The coast is about 25 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Fox Island, which the map shows.

To the coast
25 min
drive to the nearest ocean beaches

What the weather is like in Fox Island, month by month

Fox Island sees roughly 132 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 79 degrees. January highs sit near 48, with lows near 36. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January48°42°36°
April60°49°41°
July79°65°54°
October61°52°45°

Flying in and out of Fox Island

Seattle-Tacoma International sits about 21 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 25.4 million passengers in 2025, with 172 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
SEA
Seattle-Tacoma International, about 21 miles
Airport size
Large hub
12th-busiest in the US, 172 nonstop destinations
Average drive
29 min
from the area, with no traffic

Fox Island 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 Fox Island against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Fox Island

Is Fox Island a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Fox Island ranks 1,438th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on high incomes, what local pay buys, and civic engagement, 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 Fox Island expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $1,067,216. The overall cost of living runs about 22% above the national average. Set against a $160,036 median income, cost of living beats 96% of towns.

Is Fox Island safe?

Yes, Fox Island is safer than 79% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $296 per resident a year.


Compare Fox Island with other towns


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Fox Island. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Fox Island 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.

Fox Island detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

  1. Walk Grade for Fox Island: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
  2. Noise in Fox Island: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
  3. Conservative vs liberal map of Fox Island: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
  4. Mobile and cell coverage in Fox Island: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.

Fox Island detail on related sites:

  1. CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
  2. ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
  3. CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.

Federal and public data:

  1. 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.
  2. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  3. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  4. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  5. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  6. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  7. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  8. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  9. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  10. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  11. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  12. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.