Best PlacesPerry Center, NY Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Perry Center, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. This page is for people who live here or already know they want to. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Perry Center ranks 10,762nd of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on few empty homes by a wide margin, and property taxes are the weak spot.

#10,762
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
Set your priorities to see your rank

The best neighborhoods in Perry Center

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Perry Center area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
Colorblind friendly off
Popular priorities:

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.

Perry Center's strengths and weaknesses

Top 3%Few empty homes
Top 5%Low crime
Top 5%Low disaster risk
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Perry Center with other towns.

Where Perry Center ranks high

  • Low vacancyBetter than 98% of towns
  • Crime safetyBetter than 96% of towns
  • Disaster safetyBetter than 95% of towns
  • School gradeA, better than 93% of towns
  • Local economyBetter than 91% of towns

Where Perry Center ranks low

  • Low property taxBetter than only 1% of towns
  • Educational attainmentBetter than only 10% of towns
  • Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 11% of towns
  • Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 15% of towns
  • Cheap childcare$1,088 a month, better than only 18% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Perry Center

A household needs to earn about $50,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Perry Center home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $62,076, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$50,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$1,160
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $152,673 home
Median rent
$752
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$778
Property tax$330
Homeowners insurance$51

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 Perry Center's effective rate of 2.60%, 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 Perry Center

Perry Center runs older than the country, and households here run smaller than average.

Median age
53
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
36%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.1
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1810%
18 to 3417%
35 to 4919%
50 to 6419%
65 and older36%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Perry Center.


Who works in Perry Center, and how

Work in Perry Center centers on agriculture & forestry and mining & oil & gas. Unemployment is low, and employment has held roughly flat.

Work from home
9%
below the national average
Unemployment
1.1%
below the national average
Job growth
−1.4%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Agriculture & forestry18%
Mining & oil & gas15%
Retail trade14%
Manufacturing13%
Transportation & warehousing11%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 64%
  • Work from home 9%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 27%

Life in Perry Center

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


What the weather is like in Perry Center, month by month

Perry Center sees roughly 84 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 87 degrees. January highs sit near 38, with lows near 20. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January38°29°20°
April62°48°36°
July87°74°61°
October68°54°43°

Flying in and out of Perry Center

The nearest airport, Frederick Douglass/Greater Rochester International, is about 30 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Pittsburgh International, about 194 miles away.

Nearest airport
ROC
Frederick Douglass/Greater Rochester International, about 30 miles
Airport size
Small hub
93rd-busiest in the US, 43 nonstop destinations
Average drive
43 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Perry Center

Schools across Perry Center average an A, better than 93% of towns.

Top elementary schools

Top high schools

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


Perry Center 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 Perry Center against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Perry Center

Is Perry Center a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Perry Center ranks 10,762nd of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on few empty homes, low crime, and low disaster risk, and lowest on property taxes and education levels. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Perry Center expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $152,673. The overall cost of living runs about 19% below the national average. Set against a $62,076 median income, cost of living beats 44% of towns.

Is Perry Center safe?

Yes, Perry Center is safer than 96% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $150 per resident a year.


Compare Perry Center with other towns


Sources and methodology

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

Perry Center detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

Perry Center 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.