Best PlacesOdessa, TX Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Odessa metro, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Several measures below read low, and the ranked lists name which ones. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Photo by Vasiliymeshko, CC BY 4.0, via commons
Odessa ranks 300th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. It ranks low mainly on tree cover and thin health care access. It does better on cell coverage, which keeps it off the bottom.
The best neighborhoods in the Odessa metro
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.
Odessa's strengths and weaknesses
Odessa ranks near the bottom because several of the basics fall short at once. Cell coverage is the standout, in the top 1% of metro areas. A stable housing market and the weather follow.
The weak spots are broad rather than narrow: tree cover, thin health care access, and education levels all drag on the score. Those are area averages, and the map below shows which parts run well above them.
Where Odessa ranks high
- Cell coverageBetter than 99% of metro areas
- Housing crash safetyBetter than 98% of metro areas
- Nice weatherabout 177 pleasant days a year, better than 95% of metro areas
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than 89% of metro areas
- State fiscal healthBetter than 82% of metro areas
Where Odessa ranks low
- Tree shadeBetter than only 1% of metro areas
- Healthcare accessBetter than only 1% of metro areas
- Educational attainmentBetter than only 2% of metro areas
- Big-city accessBetter than only 4% of metro areas
- Voter turnoutBetter than only 4% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Odessa
A household needs to earn about $59,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Odessa home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $78,777, 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 Odessa's effective rate of 1.22%, 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 6 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Odessa
Odessa runs younger than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Odessa.
Who works in Odessa, and how
Work in Odessa centers on mining & oil & gas and health care & social. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 93%
- Work from home 4%
- Transit, walk, or bike 2%
Life in Odessa
The map and measures below break down dining, culture, and green space by neighborhood across Odessa.
Is Odessa growing, and who is moving in?
Odessa has grown about 10% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Midland, TX.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Odessa go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Odessa, month by month
Odessa sees roughly 177 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 97 degrees. January highs sit near 60, with lows near 34. The comfortable stretch runs March through May, October, and November.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 60° | 45° | 34° |
| April | 83° | 66° | 53° |
| July | 97° | 85° | 74° |
| October | 81° | 67° | 55° |
Flying in and out of Odessa
The nearest airport, Midland International Air And Space Port, is about 11 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is San Antonio International, about 282 miles away.
The best schools in and around Odessa
Schools across Odessa average a C, better than 23% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- Carver CenterA+ · 91% proficient
- El Magnet At Reagan ElA+ · 84% proficient
- El Magnet At HaysB · 45% proficient
Top middle schools
- Abell J HC+ · 37% proficient
- Crane MiddleC+ · 36% proficient
- Nimitz MiddleC · 34% proficient
Top high schools
- Early College H S At Midland CollegeA · 77% proficient
- Odessa Collegiate Academy Early College H SB+ · 57% proficient
- George H W Bush New Tech OdessaB+ · 55% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Odessa school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Odessa 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 Odessa against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Odessa suits
Common questions about living in Odessa
Is Odessa a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Odessa ranks 300th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on cell coverage, a stable housing market, and the weather, and lowest on tree cover 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 Odessa expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $211,955. The overall cost of living runs about 14% below the national average. Set against a $78,777 median income, cost of living beats 58% of metro areas.
Is Odessa safe?
Odessa is safer than 7% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $604 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Odessa?
July highs average about 97 degrees, and January highs near 60 with lows near 34. That works out to about 177 pleasant days a year, more than 95% of metro areas.
Is Odessa good for families?
Schools beat 23% of metro areas, crime safety beats 7%, and childcare runs $706 a month.
Is Odessa good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 58% of metro areas, though advertised internet speeds beat only 60% of metro areas. About 4% of workers already work from home.
Compare Odessa with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Odessa. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Odessa 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.
Odessa detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Odessa: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Odessa: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Odessa: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Odessa: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Odessa 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.
- U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program: population growth and net migration behind the population-change section.
- 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.