Best PlacesPalm Beach, FL Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Palm Beach, 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.
Palm Beach ranks 8,798th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on health care access by a wide margin, and an overheated housing market is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Palm Beach
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.
Palm Beach's strengths and weaknesses
Where Palm Beach ranks high
- Healthcare accessBetter than 99% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 99% of towns
- Household income$202,094 median, better than 99% of towns
- BikingBetter than 99% of towns
- State infrastructureBetter than 99% of towns
Where Palm Beach ranks low
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 1% of towns
- Heat safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 3% of towns
- Crime safetyBetter than only 5% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Palm Beach
A household needs to earn about $463,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Palm Beach home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $202,094, 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 Palm Beach's effective rate of 0.73%, 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 Palm Beach
Palm Beach runs older than the country, 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 Palm Beach.
Who works in Palm Beach, and how
Work in Palm Beach centers on professional & technical and finance & insurance. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 50%
- Work from home 38%
- Transit, walk, or bike 11%
Life in Palm Beach
Palm Beach has more restaurants and bars per resident than 93% of towns. The coast is about 0 minutes away. That concentrates in some parts of Palm Beach and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Palm Beach, month by month
Palm Beach sees roughly 89 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 92 degrees. January highs sit near 78, with lows near 57. The comfortable stretch runs November through March.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 78° | 67° | 57° |
| April | 85° | 76° | 68° |
| July | 92° | 84° | 77° |
| October | 87° | 80° | 73° |
Flying in and out of Palm Beach
Palm Beach International sits about 4 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 4.3 million passengers in 2025, with 67 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Palm Beach
Schools across Palm Beach average a B−, better than 52% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Palm Beach Public SchoolA− · 62% proficient
Top middle schools
- Conniston Middle SchoolC+ · 35% proficient
- John F. Kennedy Middle SchoolD+ · 27% proficient
- Lake Worth Community MiddleD · 20% proficient
Top high schools
- Alexander W Dreyfoos Junior School Of The ArtsA+ · 86% proficient
- William T. Dwyer High SchoolB+ · 51% proficient
- Forest Hill Community High SchoolB− · 45% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Palm Beach school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Palm Beach 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 Palm Beach against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Palm Beach
Is Palm Beach a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Palm Beach ranks 8,798th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on health care access, an educated workforce, and high incomes, and lowest on an overheated housing market and car insurance costs. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Palm Beach expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $1,787,174. The overall cost of living runs about 92% above the national average. Set against a $202,094 median income, cost of living beats 96% of towns.
Is Palm Beach safe?
Palm Beach is safer than 5% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $510 per resident a year.
Compare Palm Beach with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Palm Beach. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Palm Beach 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.
Palm Beach detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Palm Beach: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Palm Beach: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Palm Beach: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Palm Beach: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Palm Beach 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.