Best PlacesSound Beach, NY Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Sound 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.
Sound Beach ranks 1,926th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on fast internet by a wide margin, and property taxes are the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Sound 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.
Sound Beach's strengths and weaknesses
Where Sound Beach ranks high
- Internet speedBetter than 99% of towns
- Health outlookBetter than 98% of towns
- Big-city accessBetter than 98% of towns
- School gradeA, better than 97% of towns
- Heat safetyBetter than 97% of towns
Where Sound Beach ranks low
- Low property taxBetter than only 2% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,476 a month, better than only 4% of towns
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 6% of towns
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 15% of towns
- QuietBetter than only 19% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Sound Beach
A household needs to earn about $130,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Sound Beach home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $134,480, 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 Sound Beach's effective rate of 2.05%, 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 7 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Sound Beach
Sound Beach runs older than the country, though fewer residents are over 65 than the national share.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Sound Beach.
Who works in Sound Beach, and how
Work in Sound Beach centers on education and health care & social. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 86%
- Work from home 10%
- Transit, walk, or bike 4%
Life in Sound Beach
The coast is about 1 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Sound Beach, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Sound Beach, month by month
Sound Beach sees roughly 72 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 86 degrees. January highs sit near 44, with lows near 25. The comfortable stretch runs May, June, and August through October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 44° | 34° | 25° |
| April | 61° | 50° | 40° |
| July | 86° | 76° | 67° |
| October | 69° | 58° | 48° |
Flying in and out of Sound Beach
The nearest airport, Long Island MacArthur, is about 13 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is John F Kennedy International, about 48 miles away.
The best schools in and around Sound Beach
Schools across Sound Beach average an A, better than 97% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Sound Beach SchoolB+ · 55% proficient
Top middle schools
- Rocky Point Middle SchoolA+ · 70% proficient
- North Country Road SchoolA+ · 68% proficient
Top high schools
- Miller Place High SchoolA+ · 97% proficient
- Rocky Point High SchoolA+ · 94% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Sound Beach school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Sound 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 Sound Beach against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Sound Beach
Is Sound Beach a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Sound Beach ranks 1,926th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on fast internet, population health, and big-city access, and lowest on property taxes and childcare costs. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Sound Beach expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $425,117. The overall cost of living runs about 18% above the national average. Set against a $134,480 median income, cost of living beats 87% of towns.
Is Sound Beach safe?
Yes, Sound Beach is safer than 93% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $169 per resident a year.
Compare Sound Beach with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Sound Beach. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Sound 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.
Sound Beach detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Sound Beach: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Sound Beach: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Sound Beach: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Sound Beach: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Sound 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.