WalletHub names 2018’s best beach towns. So why didn’t the Cape do well?
The personal finance website WalletHub compared 205 communities to compile 2018’s Best Beach Towns to Live in list.
The personal finance website WalletHub compared more than 200 US cities near oceans and lakes for its 2018’s Best Beach Towns to Live in list. Not surprisingly, communities in Florida, California, and Hawaii dominated. Places in Massachusetts? Not so much.
The website divided its findings into two categories: ocean and lake beaches. The first time the state appears on the list of best towns near the ocean is at No. 27: Swampscott. Cape Cod does not make an appearance until South Yarmouth clocks in at No. 67. Six other Massachusetts towns made it on the list of 161 oceanfront destinations: Newburyport (51), Salem (69), Gloucester (88), Revere (90), Lynn (115), and Hull (122).
To come up with these ratings, WalletHub considered cities with populations between 10,000 and 150,000, as well as places with a minimum of one beach listed on TripAdvisor. (That population criterion would explain why places like Provincetown, Truro, and Chatham didn’t make the list.) The resulting 205 communities were graded on 58 items, from housing costs to ice cream and frozen yogurt shops per capita, and across six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. Each item was graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 “representing the most favorable conditions for beach-town living,” according to a post on WalletHub.
Swampscott was flagged for having the fourth-lowest housing costs of a town near the ocean. According to Zillow, the median home value there is $496,500.
Elsewhere in New England, Westport, Conn., slipped into the top 10 ocean beach towns at No. 9. No New England spots were featured in the top 10 lake destinations. In fact, only two, Burlington, Vt., (18) and Laconia, N.H., (25) made it onto that list at all.
New England towns near the ocean fared much better, racking up 18 mentions. Rounding out Westport and the aforementioned picks in Massachusetts, the region was represented by Portland, Maine (12), South Portland, Maine (54), Milford, Conn. (64), Stratford, Conn. (66), Newport, R.I. (78), East Haven, Conn. (80), Biddeford, Maine (84), Westerly, R.I. (109), New London, Conn. (118), and Warwick, R.I. (137).
Westport, Conn., nabbed the title of fifth-highest median household income, with New London, Conn., coming in at fifth-lowest. The third-highest median annual property taxes goes to Stratford, Conn. East Haven, Conn. had the fifth-to-fewest nightlife establishments per capita by the ocean.
As for cities by lakes, Burlington, Vt. boasted the second-highest housing costs and lowest foreclosure rate, as well as the fifth-highest number of nightlife establishments per capita.
Check out the full list of beach towns on WalletHub.
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