Best PlacesGreat Neck, NY Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Great Neck, 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.
Great Neck ranks 2,764th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on big-city access by a wide margin, and car insurance costs are the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Great Neck
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.
Great Neck's strengths and weaknesses
Where Great Neck ranks high
- Big-city accessBetter than 99% of towns
- WalkabilityBetter than 99% of towns
- School gradeA+, better than 99% of towns
- TransitBetter than 99% of towns
- Internet speedBetter than 98% of towns
Where Great Neck ranks low
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 2% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,476 a month, better than only 4% of towns
- Short commute39.4 minutes each way, better than only 6% of towns
- Low property taxBetter than only 10% of towns
- QuietBetter than only 10% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Great Neck
A household needs to earn about $289,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Great Neck home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $139,972, 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 Great Neck's effective rate of 1.52%, 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 Great Neck
Great Neck's age mix sits close to the national median, 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 Great Neck.
Who works in Great Neck, and how
Work in Great Neck centers on health care & social and education. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and the job base is shrinking.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 53%
- Work from home 17%
- Transit, walk, or bike 30%
Life in Great Neck
Great Neck has more parkland per resident than 85% of towns. The coast is about 7 minutes away. That concentrates in some parts of Great Neck and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Great Neck, month by month
Great Neck sees roughly 70 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 90 degrees. January highs sit near 44, with lows near 29. The comfortable stretch runs May, June, September, and October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 44° | 36° | 29° |
| April | 65° | 53° | 45° |
| July | 90° | 80° | 72° |
| October | 70° | 61° | 54° |
Flying in and out of Great Neck
Laguardia sits about 8 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 16.3 million passengers in 2025, with 118 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Great Neck
Schools across Great Neck average an A+, better than 99% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Lakeville Elementary SchoolA+ · 96% proficient
- Brooklyn School Of InquiryA+ · 93% proficient
- E M Baker SchoolA+ · 91% proficient
Top middle schools
- Manhasset Middle SchoolA+ · 91% proficient
- Great Neck South Middle SchoolA+ · 87% proficient
- Great Neck North Middle SchoolA+ · 82% proficient
Top high schools
- Great Neck South High SchoolA+ · 100% proficient
- Manhasset Secondary SchoolA+ · 100% proficient
- Great Neck North High SchoolA+ · 98% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Great Neck school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Great Neck 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 Great Neck against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Great Neck
Is Great Neck a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Great Neck ranks 2,764th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on big-city access, walkability, and good schools, and lowest on car insurance costs and childcare costs. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Great Neck expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $1,006,472. The overall cost of living runs about 53% above the national average. Set against a $139,972 median income, cost of living beats 65% of towns.
Is Great Neck safe?
Great Neck is safer than 29% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $387 per resident a year.
Compare Great Neck with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Great Neck. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Great Neck 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.
Great Neck detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Great Neck: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Great Neck: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Great Neck: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Great Neck: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Great Neck 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.