Best PlacesHorseshoe Bay, TX Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Horseshoe Bay, 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

Horseshoe Bay ranks 9,138th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on a strong job market by a wide margin, and summer heat is the weak spot.

#9,138
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
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The best neighborhoods in Horseshoe Bay

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Horseshoe Bay area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
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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.

Horseshoe Bay's strengths and weaknesses

Top 5%A strong job market
Top 5%The weather
Top 10%Civic engagement
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Horseshoe Bay with other towns.

Where Horseshoe Bay ranks high

  • Local economyBetter than 96% of towns
  • Nice weatherabout 162 pleasant days a year, better than 95% of towns
  • Voter turnoutBetter than 95% of towns
  • Healthcare accessBetter than 93% of towns
  • Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than 92% of towns

Where Horseshoe Bay ranks low

  • Heat safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
  • Low vacancyBetter than only 10% of towns
  • Housing crash safetyBetter than only 10% of towns
  • Air qualityBetter than only 13% of towns
  • Disaster safetyBetter than only 21% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Horseshoe Bay

A household needs to earn about $148,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Horseshoe Bay home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $100,396, so buying stretches a typical household.

Income to buy the median home
$148,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$3,465
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $566,053 home
Median rent
$1,506
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$2,886
Property tax$390
Homeowners insurance$189

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 Horseshoe Bay's 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.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Horseshoe Bay

Horseshoe Bay runs older than the country, and households here run smaller than average.

Median age
60
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
46%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
1.9
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1810%
18 to 3410%
35 to 4916%
50 to 6419%
65 and older46%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Horseshoe Bay.


Who works in Horseshoe Bay, and how

Work in Horseshoe Bay centers on professional & technical and retail trade. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
22%
above the national average
Unemployment
1.9%
below the national average
Job growth
+6.8%
/y 2019-2023, faster than the national pace

Largest industries

Professional & technical15%
Retail trade12%
Real estate11%
Health care & social10%
Manufacturing8%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 76%
  • Work from home 22%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 2%

Life in Horseshoe Bay

The map and measures below break down dining, culture, and green space by neighborhood across Horseshoe Bay.


What the weather is like in Horseshoe Bay, month by month

Horseshoe Bay sees roughly 162 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 97 degrees. January highs sit near 63, with lows near 39. The comfortable stretch runs March, April, October, and November.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January63°49°39°
April82°68°58°
July97°85°74°
October84°70°59°

Flying in and out of Horseshoe Bay

Austin-Bergstrom International sits about 48 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 10.7 million passengers in 2025, with 127 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
AUS
Austin-Bergstrom International, about 48 miles
Airport size
Large hub
29th-busiest in the US, 127 nonstop destinations
Average drive
69 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Horseshoe Bay

Schools across Horseshoe Bay average a B−, better than 56% of towns.

Top elementary schools

Top middle schools

Top high schools

Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Horseshoe Bay school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Horseshoe Bay 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 Horseshoe Bay against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Horseshoe Bay

Is Horseshoe Bay a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Horseshoe Bay ranks 9,138th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on a strong job market, the weather, and civic engagement, and lowest on summer heat and empty homes. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Horseshoe Bay expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $566,053. The overall cost of living runs about 4% above the national average. Set against a $100,396 median income, cost of living beats 84% of towns.

Is Horseshoe Bay safe?

Yes, Horseshoe Bay is safer than 68% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $295 per resident a year.


Compare Horseshoe Bay with other towns


Sources and methodology

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

Horseshoe Bay detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

Horseshoe Bay 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.