Best PlacesMays Chapel, MD Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Mays Chapel, 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.
Mays Chapel ranks 1,824th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on an educated workforce by a wide margin, and taxes are the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Mays Chapel
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.
Mays Chapel's strengths and weaknesses
Where Mays Chapel ranks high
- Educational attainmentBetter than 99% of towns
- Cost of living vs incomeBetter than 98% of towns
- Healthcare accessBetter than 98% of towns
- Health outlookBetter than 98% of towns
- Household income$151,014 median, better than 97% of towns
Where Mays Chapel ranks low
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 1% of towns
- QuietBetter than only 2% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,377 a month, better than only 7% of towns
- State infrastructureBetter than only 8% of towns
- State fiscal healthBetter than only 8% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Mays Chapel
A household needs to earn about $150,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Mays Chapel home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $151,014, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.
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 Mays Chapel's effective rate of 1.06%, 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 Mays Chapel
Mays Chapel runs older than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Mays Chapel.
Who works in Mays Chapel, and how
Work in Mays Chapel centers on education and health care & social. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 75%
- Work from home 23%
- Transit, walk, or bike 2%
Life in Mays Chapel
Mays Chapel has more parkland per resident than 96% of towns. The coast is about 25 minutes away. That concentrates in some parts of Mays Chapel and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Mays Chapel, month by month
Mays Chapel sees roughly 97 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 91 degrees. January highs sit near 45, with lows near 33. The comfortable stretch runs April, May, September, and October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 45° | 39° | 33° |
| April | 68° | 59° | 51° |
| July | 91° | 83° | 76° |
| October | 71° | 63° | 56° |
Flying in and out of Mays Chapel
Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall sits about 18 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 12.3 million passengers in 2025, with 114 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Mays Chapel
Schools across Mays Chapel average a B+, better than 75% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Pinewood ElementaryA · 64% proficient
- Riderwood ElementaryA− · 60% proficient
- Mays Chapel ElementaryB · 45% proficient
Top middle schools
- Ridgely MiddleB+ · 48% proficient
Top high schools
- Dulaney HighB− · 45% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Mays Chapel school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Mays Chapel 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 Mays Chapel against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Mays Chapel
Is Mays Chapel a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Mays Chapel ranks 1,824th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on an educated workforce, what local pay buys, and health care access, and lowest on taxes and noise. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Mays Chapel expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $552,431. The overall cost of living runs about 2% below the national average. Set against a $151,014 median income, cost of living beats 98% of towns.
Is Mays Chapel safe?
Mays Chapel is safer than 50% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $281 per resident a year.
Compare Mays Chapel with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Mays Chapel. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Mays Chapel 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.
Mays Chapel detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Mays Chapel: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Mays Chapel: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Mays Chapel: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Mays Chapel: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Mays Chapel 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.