Best PlacesSan Leandro, CA Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around San Leandro, 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.

See the map of best neighborhoods

San Leandro ranks 1,074th of 2,098 U.S. cities on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on fast internet by a wide margin, and childcare costs are the weak spot.

#1,074
of 2,098 cities
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 2,098 cities
Your rank
Set your priorities to see your rank

The best neighborhoods in San Leandro

Map of the best neighborhoods in the San Leandro 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.

The best areas in San Leandro

The parts of San Leandro, ranked by the BestNeighborhood standard score across every neighborhood, highest scoring first.

#1

Bay-O-Vista & Chabot Park

WorseBetter
77th nationally
#2

Marina Faire & Heron Bay

WorseBetter
71st nationally
#3

Estudillo Estates-Glen & Broadmoor District

WorseBetter
70th nationally
#4

Washington Manor-Bonaire

WorseBetter
64th nationally
#5

Sobrante Park, Farrelly Pond District & North Stonehurst

WorseBetter
57th nationally
#6

Davis Tract, Mullford Gardens & Laqua Manor

WorseBetter
56th nationally
#7

Old San Leandro

WorseBetter
52nd nationally
#8

Lower Bal, Upper Bal & Assumption Parish

WorseBetter
47th nationally
#9

Floresta Gardens-Bradrick

WorseBetter
44th nationally

San Leandro shows why a single number is not enough. Some neighborhoods score in the bottom 14% of the country and others in the top 6%. Pick the area first, then the home.


San Leandro's strengths and weaknesses

Top 3%Fast internet
Top 5%Biking
Top 10%The weather
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare San Leandro with other cities.

Where San Leandro ranks high

  • Internet speedBetter than 99% of cities
  • BikingBetter than 97% of cities
  • Nice weatherabout 239 pleasant days a year, better than 94% of cities
  • WalkabilityBetter than 91% of cities
  • Big-city accessBetter than 90% of cities

Where San Leandro ranks low

  • Cheap childcare$2,082 a month, better than only 2% of cities
  • QuietBetter than only 3% of cities
  • Disaster safetyBetter than only 6% of cities
  • Crime safetyBetter than only 9% of cities
  • Tree shadeBetter than only 10% of cities

What it costs to buy a home in San Leandro

A household needs to earn about $214,000 a year to comfortably buy the median San Leandro home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $112,096, so buying stretches a typical household.

Income to buy the median home
$214,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$4,986
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $823,866 home
Median rent
$2,261
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$4,201
Property tax$511
Homeowners insurance$275

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 San Leandro's effective rate of 0.74%, 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 San Leandro

San Leandro runs older than the country, and households here run larger than average.

Median age
44
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
20%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.9
above the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1818%
18 to 3422%
35 to 4921%
50 to 6421%
65 and older20%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for San Leandro.


Who works in San Leandro, and how

Work in San Leandro centers on health care & social and manufacturing. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
16%
about the national average
Unemployment
4.5%
about the national average
Job growth
+1.9%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Health care & social14%
Manufacturing10%
Professional & technical9%
Retail trade9%
Hospitality & food9%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 72%
  • Work from home 16%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 12%

Life in San Leandro

San Leandro has more restaurants and bars per resident than 76% of cities and more parkland per resident than 83% of cities. The coast is about 24 minutes away. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of San Leandro and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
431
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 47.1 per 10,000 residents, more than 76% of cities
Coffee shops
50
about 5.5 per 10,000 residents, more than 80% of cities
Parkland
332 acres
about 3.6 acres per 1,000 residents, more than 83% of cities
To the coast
24 min
drive to the nearest ocean beaches

What the weather is like in San Leandro, month by month

San Leandro sees roughly 239 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 75 degrees. January highs sit near 60, with lows near 46. The comfortable stretch runs March through November.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January60°52°46°
April67°58°51°
July75°65°58°
October75°64°55°

Flying in and out of San Leandro

San Francisco Bay Oakland International sits about 4 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 4.5 million passengers in 2025, with 64 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
OAK
San Francisco Bay Oakland International, about 4 miles
Airport size
Medium hub
48th-busiest in the US, 64 nonstop destinations
Average drive
8 min
from the area, with no traffic

San Leandro 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 San Leandro against the other 2,097 cities.


Who San Leandro suits

Families

Schools beat 57% of cities.

See the families priority ↑

Remote workers

Internet is fast and widely advertised and 16% already work from home.

See the remote-work priority ↑

Retirees

The weather beats 94% of cities.

See the retirees priority ↑


Common questions about living in San Leandro

Is San Leandro a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, San Leandro ranks 1,074th of 2,098 cities. It scores highest on fast internet, biking, and the weather, and lowest on childcare costs and noise. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is San Leandro expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $823,866. The overall cost of living runs about 29% above the national average. Set against a $112,096 median income, cost of living beats 37% of cities.

Is San Leandro safe?

San Leandro is safer than 9% of cities. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $530 per resident a year.

What is the weather like in San Leandro?

July highs average about 75 degrees, and January highs near 60 with lows near 46. That works out to about 239 pleasant days a year, more than 94% of cities.

What are the best neighborhoods in San Leandro?

Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Bay-O-Vista & Chabot Park, Marina Faire & Heron Bay, and Estudillo Estates-Glen & Broadmoor District. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.


Compare San Leandro with other cities


Sources and methodology

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

San Leandro detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

San Leandro 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.