Best PlacesSantee, SC Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Santee, 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.
Santee ranks 48,476th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. Crime pulls hardest against it, while it scores best on affordable childcare.
The best neighborhoods in Santee
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.
Santee's strengths and weaknesses
Where Santee ranks high
- Cheap childcare$552 a month, better than 87% of towns
- Local economyBetter than 84% of towns
- BikingBetter than 76% of towns
- WalkabilityBetter than 72% of towns
- State infrastructureBetter than 71% of towns
Where Santee ranks low
- Crime safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- School gradeF, better than only 4% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 7% of towns
- Heat safetyBetter than only 14% of towns
- Health outlookBetter than only 16% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Santee
A household needs to earn about $44,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Santee home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $54,498, 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 Santee's effective rate of 0.70%, 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 Santee
Santee runs older than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Santee.
Who works in Santee, and how
Work in Santee centers on manufacturing and retail trade. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 91%
- Work from home 7%
- Transit, walk, or bike 1%
Life in Santee
Santee has more restaurants and bars per resident than 92% of towns. That concentrates in some parts of Santee and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Santee, month by month
Santee sees roughly 104 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 89 degrees. January highs sit near 56, with lows near 37. The comfortable stretch runs March through May, September, and October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 56° | 45° | 37° |
| April | 75° | 62° | 52° |
| July | 89° | 79° | 72° |
| October | 76° | 64° | 55° |
Flying in and out of Santee
Charleston AFB/International sits about 48 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 3.2 million passengers in 2025, with 95 nonstop destinations.
Santee 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 Santee against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Santee
Is Santee a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Santee ranks 48,476th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on affordable childcare, a strong job market, and biking, and lowest on crime and the schools. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Santee expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $170,995. The overall cost of living runs about 10% below the national average. Set against a $54,498 median income, cost of living beats 17% of towns.
Is Santee safe?
Santee is safer than 1% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $1,211 per resident a year.
Compare Santee with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Santee. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Santee 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.
Santee detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Santee: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Santee: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Santee: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Santee: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Santee 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.