Best PlacesSeaside, OR Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Seaside, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. The coast is close, and the measures below put a number on how close. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Seaside ranks 34,120th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on walkability by a wide margin, and an overheated housing market is the weak spot.

#34,120
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 Seaside

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Seaside 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.

Seaside's strengths and weaknesses

Top 3%Walkability
Top 3%Biking
Top 3%State infrastructure
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Seaside with other towns.

Where Seaside ranks high

  • WalkabilityBetter than 98% of towns
  • BikingBetter than 98% of towns
  • State infrastructureBetter than 97% of towns
  • Air qualityBetter than 96% of towns
  • TransitBetter than 94% of towns

Where Seaside ranks low

  • Housing crash safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
  • Disaster safetyBetter than only 7% of towns
  • Cost of living vs incomeBetter than only 11% of towns
  • School gradeC−, better than only 23% of towns
  • Low vacancyBetter than only 24% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Seaside

A household needs to earn about $124,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Seaside home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $59,098, so buying stretches a typical household.

Income to buy the median home
$124,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$2,885
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $481,473 home
Median rent
$1,190
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$2,455
Property tax$269
Homeowners insurance$160

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 Seaside's effective rate of 0.67%, 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 Seaside

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

Median age
49
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
26%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.0
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1814%
18 to 3417%
35 to 4920%
50 to 6423%
65 and older26%

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


Who works in Seaside, and how

Work in Seaside centers on retail trade and hospitality & food. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
15%
about the national average
Unemployment
7.1%
above the national average
Job growth
+1.5%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Retail trade24%
Hospitality & food13%
Health care & social12%
Construction9%
Admin & support services6%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 70%
  • Work from home 15%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 15%

Life in Seaside

Seaside has more restaurants and bars per resident than 95% of towns. The coast is about 2 minutes away. That concentrates in some parts of Seaside and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
138
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 159.4 per 10,000 residents, more than 95% of towns
Coffee shops
24
about 27.7 per 10,000 residents, more than 96% of towns
To the coast
2 min
drive to the nearest ocean beaches

What the weather is like in Seaside, month by month

Seaside sees roughly 113 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 70 degrees. January highs sit near 52, with lows near 37. The comfortable stretch runs June through September.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January52°44°37°
April59°49°40°
July70°61°53°
October63°54°45°

Flying in and out of Seaside

Portland International sits about 69 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 9.1 million passengers in 2025, with 117 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
PDX
Portland International, about 69 miles
Airport size
Medium hub
32nd-busiest in the US, 117 nonstop destinations
Average drive
98 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Seaside

Schools across Seaside average a C−, better than 23% of towns.

Top elementary schools

Top middle schools

Top high schools

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


Seaside 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 Seaside against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Seaside

Is Seaside a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Seaside ranks 34,120th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on walkability, biking, and state infrastructure, and lowest on an overheated housing market and disaster risk. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Seaside expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $481,473. The overall cost of living runs about 10% above the national average. Set against a $59,098 median income, cost of living beats 11% of towns.

Is Seaside safe?

Seaside is safer than 31% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $500 per resident a year.


Compare Seaside with other towns


Sources and methodology

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

Seaside detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

Seaside 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.