Best PlacesStinson Beach, CA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Stinson Beach, 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.
Stinson Beach ranks 27,981st of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on health care access by a wide margin, and childcare costs are the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Stinson 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.
Stinson Beach's strengths and weaknesses
Where Stinson Beach ranks high
- Healthcare accessBetter than 97% of towns
- Big-city accessBetter than 97% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 96% of towns
- Household income$133,238 median, better than 95% of towns
- Nice weatherabout 162 pleasant days a year, better than 95% of towns
Where Stinson Beach ranks low
- Cheap childcare$2,211 a month, better than only 1% of towns
- Cost of living vs incomeBetter than only 3% of towns
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 6% of towns
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 8% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 8% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Stinson Beach
A household needs to earn about $374,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Stinson Beach home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $133,238, so buying stretches a typical household.
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 Stinson Beach's effective rate of 0.44%, 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.
Who lives in Stinson Beach
Stinson Beach runs older than the country, and households here run smaller than average.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Stinson Beach.
Who works in Stinson Beach, and how
Work in Stinson Beach centers on construction and real estate. Unemployment is low, and the job base is shrinking.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 72%
- Work from home 18%
- Transit, walk, or bike 10%
Life in Stinson Beach
The coast is about 1 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Stinson Beach, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Stinson Beach, month by month
Stinson Beach sees roughly 162 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 87 degrees. January highs sit near 60, with lows near 42. The comfortable stretch runs April through October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 60° | 50° | 42° |
| April | 71° | 57° | 46° |
| July | 87° | 66° | 52° |
| October | 79° | 61° | 47° |
Flying in and out of Stinson Beach
San Francisco International sits about 25 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 26.5 million passengers in 2025, with 193 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Stinson Beach
Schools across Stinson Beach average a B+, better than 79% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Bolinas-stinson ElementaryB · 50% proficient
Top high schools
- Tamalpais HighA− · 64% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Stinson Beach school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Stinson 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 Stinson Beach against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Stinson Beach
Is Stinson Beach a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Stinson Beach ranks 27,981st of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on health care access, big-city access, and an educated workforce, and lowest on childcare costs and the cost of living against local pay. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Stinson Beach expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $1,505,040. The overall cost of living runs about 166% above the national average. Set against a $133,238 median income, cost of living beats 3% of towns.
Is Stinson Beach safe?
Stinson Beach is safer than 10% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $575 per resident a year.
Compare Stinson Beach with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Stinson Beach. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Stinson 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.
Stinson Beach detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Stinson Beach: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Stinson Beach: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Stinson Beach: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Stinson Beach: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Stinson 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.