Best PlacesOwings Mills, MD Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Owings Mills, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Distance to the water drives a lot of the difference between one part and the next. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Owings Mills ranks 1,312th of 2,098 U.S. cities on the BestNeighborhood index. Taxes pulls hardest against it, while it scores best on an educated workforce.
The best neighborhoods in Owings Mills
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.
The best areas in Owings Mills
The parts of Owings Mills, ranked by the BestNeighborhood standard score across every neighborhood, highest scoring first.
Garrison
Riders Ridge
Owings Mills New Town, Villages of Winterset & Owings Run
Atrium Village, Village of Painters Mill & McDonogh Oaks
McDonogh Twp & Queen Anne Village
Pleasant Hill & Summer Woods
Tollgate
Scores across Owings Mills run from about the 4th to the 84th percentile nationally. The map is where that becomes a choice of area.
Owings Mills' strengths and weaknesses
Where Owings Mills ranks high
- Educational attainmentBetter than 80% of cities
- Tree shadeBetter than 79% of cities
- Cell coverageBetter than 77% of cities
- Big-city accessBetter than 76% of cities
- Cost of living vs incomeBetter than 76% of cities
Where Owings Mills ranks low
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 1% of cities
- State infrastructureBetter than only 4% of cities
- School gradeD, better than only 6% of cities
- Crime safetyBetter than only 10% of cities
- State fiscal healthBetter than only 14% of cities
What it costs to buy a home in Owings Mills
A household needs to earn about $107,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Owings Mills home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is only a little above the area's median income of $105,729; the gap is small, which keeps homes within reach of local pay.
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 Owings Mills' effective rate of 0.95%, 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 8 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Owings Mills
Owings Mills's age mix sits close to the national median, and households here run smaller than average.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Owings Mills.
Who works in Owings Mills, and how
Work in Owings Mills centers on health care & social and professional & technical. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and the job base is shrinking.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 69%
- Work from home 22%
- Transit, walk, or bike 9%
Life in Owings Mills
Owings Mills has more restaurants and bars per resident than 75% of cities and more parkland per resident than 86% of cities. The coast is about 28 minutes away. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Owings Mills and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Owings Mills, month by month
Owings Mills 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 Owings Mills
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 Owings Mills
Schools across Owings Mills average a D, better than 6% of cities.
Top elementary schools
- Fort Garrison ElementaryB · 47% proficient
- Franklin ElementaryC · 35% proficient
- Lyons Mill ElementaryD+ · 25% proficient
Top middle schools
- Franklin MiddleD+ · 24% proficient
- Pikesville MiddleD+ · 24% proficient
- Deer Park Middle Magnet SchoolD · 21% proficient
Top high schools
- Pikesville HighC+ · 38% proficient
- Franklin HighC+ · 37% proficient
- New Town HighD− · 15% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Owings Mills school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Owings Mills 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 Owings Mills against the other 2,097 cities.
Who Owings Mills suits
Remote workers
Cost of living against local pay beats 76% of cities and 22% already work from home.
Retirees
The weather beats 58% of cities, health care access beats 56%, and it is quieter than 59%.
Common questions about living in Owings Mills
Is Owings Mills a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Owings Mills ranks 1,312th of 2,098 cities. It scores highest on an educated workforce, tree cover, and cell coverage, and lowest on taxes and state infrastructure. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Owings Mills expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $400,838. The overall cost of living runs about 7% below the national average. Set against a $105,729 median income, cost of living beats 76% of cities.
Is Owings Mills safe?
Owings Mills is safer than 10% of cities. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $521 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Owings Mills?
July highs average about 91 degrees, and January highs near 45 with lows near 33. That works out to about 97 pleasant days a year, more than 58% of cities.
What are the best neighborhoods in Owings Mills?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Garrison, Riders Ridge, and Owings Mills New Town, Villages of Winterset & Owings Run. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Compare Owings Mills with other cities
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Owings Mills. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Owings Mills 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.
Owings Mills detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Owings Mills: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Owings Mills: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Owings Mills: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Owings Mills: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Owings Mills 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.