The Worst Neighborhoods on the Oregon Coast

Where are the worst neighborhoods on the Oregon Coast? And what makes them so bad? We'll show you things such as crime and why some neighborhoods are less desirable than others. From Brookings to Astoria, we take a look at the entire Coast.

Wondering if there are any neighborhoods along the Oregon Coast to watch out for? High crime. Low property values. High unemployment. Low income. These are metrics usually used to determine if an area is nice to live in or not. You’ve probably seen some of those lists such as those top 10 lists. Top 10 worst places to live in the state of Oregon or top 10 most dangerous places to live in the state of Oregon. I took a look at all those lists and I didn’t find any lists for the Oregon Coast but I did notice that just about all of those lists had at least one Oregon Coast town on their list and in fact some of them had three, four even five Oregon Coast towns as part of their top ten list for the entire state, which was kind of surprising. It got me to thinking that if you haven’t actually been to the Oregon Coast or you’re not familiar, you might think that the Oregon Coast is maybe not such a nice place to live you might think it’s actually the worst place out of all of Oregon to live if you just went by these lists. In this blog I’m going to give you the honest truth about the worst neighborhoods on the Oregon Coast. I’m going to go over some of the real numbers and some of the data so you can see for yourself and if you think that we’ve missed an area, you can leave a comment and let us know. We’ll take a look at it for our next blog. 

First, a little bit of the honest truth. I’m going to give this to you both personally and professionally. So personally, first I’ve lived in the state of Oregon my entire life. Almost 40 years. I’ve spent a lot of time all up and down the Oregon coast I’ve stayed in every major town. A lot of the small towns. Probably not every single small town. There’s a lot of little ones but I have spent a lot of time all along the Coast and I can say unequivocally that I have never felt unsafe or really even uncomfortable in all of my experiences. And I say that realizing that I am a male. I am larger in stature I’m not a small person but I think that would probably be true of anybody. I’ve never been with anybody or really even heard about anybody having a bad experience. I’m sure that there are bad experiences. I’m sure that there is crime of course those things happen. I’m going to talk about some of those things in the numbers but for me personally if you’re again going back to those lists just looking at those top 10 lists of the worst places to live in the state of Oregon and so many of those Coastal towns showing up there you really might think that it’s maybe not a safe place but that hasn’t been the case for me personally and I can maybe give you a few examples. When I was 15, I went down to California in the bay area with my family on a family vacation and we were staying around the South Bay area around Sunnyvale.  We were just grabbing a few drinks at like a convenience store I was in there with my mom and we were standing in line and somebody comes in and says somebody quick call 9-1-1 somebody’s been shot outside. Well, that was pretty jarring for me I’d never experienced anything like that before. The cashier barely lifted an eyebrow nobody else really seemed to care too much in the store either so just seeing other people’s reactions or kind of non-reactions was also sort of surprising especially as a 15year-old. We went outside right away of course and sure enough there was somebody laying on the ground there and there’s people standing around that person. We left and later traveled along to LA. This was a five-day trip between San Francisco and LA and I can say that some of the things that I saw and experienced definitely made me feel more unsafe than the entire rest of the time that I spent along the Oregon Coast if that gives you any more context. How about a recent example? I love the city of Portland and I will say though that the last few years it’s been rough for the city of Portland they’ve had a rough time kind of like a lot of cities but Portland in particular definitely has struggled and it’s still beautiful there’s still a lot of nice parts but there’s definitely some parts that have really deteriorated. There are probably some places that I used to go have lunch that I might feel way more uncomfortable than anywhere that I could find along the Oregon Coast. So, what does that actually look like? Well, what you see is trash everywhere. Lots of homeless people or houseless people however, they want to be referred to. Lots of drugs. Needles. Some of these people sometimes will be aggressive yell at you throw things at you occasionally you know try and do something like intimidate you. Whereas my experience is on the Oregon coast there’s going to be some homeless people here and there you’re going to see some of that. Maybe you see some needles from drugs. Some of the bigger cities you might see some of the people walking around that look like they’re on drugs. You might see a little bit of that, but I’ve never experienced some of the things that I’ve experienced in Portland along the Oregon coast again probably one day in Portland is probably going to be more uncomfortable than anything I would ever experience my entire lifetime along the Oregon Coast. I hope that gives you a better sense of what some of the worst neighborhoods on the Oregon Coast are even going to look like. It’s probably not that bad if you’re coming from a big city such as Portland, San Francisco, or Seattle. You’re used to some of the stuff that you’ve seen in big cities. You’re probably not going to see some of that stuff anywhere along the Oregon Coast. Now professionally, as a licensed real estate broker in the state of Oregon you are not supposed to steer people towards or away from particular homes or particular neighborhoods. That’s a big no-no. It’s definitely frowned upon so i just want to make it very clear that if your home or a home that you want to move to is on one of these lists or in one of these areas that we discuss, we will be more than happy to work with you. I think all of Oregon is great you know again there’s some parts that are better than others but anybody that needs help buying or selling home, we don’t care where you live. We’ll be happy to work with you.

Okay, now so on to the neighborhoods or in the case, towns. The first on the list is Warrenton. Warrington’s kind of a funny one if you look at this map the green indicates low crime yellow higher crime and read the highest crime and according to this the website crimegrade.org Warrenton’s overall rating is a C. The violent crime grade is an A minus so what that means is there’s very low violent crime however the property crimes a little bit higher and that’s what’s probably down the overall grade. If we look at the image above according to crimgrade.org your chance of being a victim of crime Warrington may be as high as 1 in 22 or as low as 1 in 45 in the south part of the city. Now interestingly enough, Warrington actually had a neighborhood that made our top neighborhoods video which is Surf Pines. And I looked at a lot of crime stats for this area. Surf Pines and Sunset Beach, the overall crime, violent crime and specific types of crime that people lookout for such as burglary were all very low in this area. And again, as you can kind of see there’s no red all throughout Warrington, so I think Warrington is a nice place to live. It’s a smaller town. It’s one of the smallest towns in the area located in Clatsop County. The population is right around 10,000 people so all in all if you’re looking to move around Warrington, you should find plenty of desirable areas. 

I found this stat as well. Crime rate of 75 per 1000 residents Warrenton has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes that’s according to neighborhoodscout.com. Now this is where these stats kind of get confusing. These websites are pulling data from different places. They might be looking at data from the FBI. Data from the local police department. Data from the sheriff’s department. Data from other law enforcement agencies. And they might be basing overall grades on violent crime, or it could be overall crime or specific types of crime so that’s why you see some conflicting stories or you kind of see some of these towns that maybe might not be that bad that end up maybe sounding worse than they are. According to crimegrades Warrington is the 46th percentile for safety meaning 54 percent of cities are safer so it’s kind of right there in the middle according to that website. According to neighborhoodscout it’s dangerous. From what I can see, it’s mostly property crime and it’s really not that high relative to the rest of the country so I would say don’t let that scare you. Warrenton is probably a fine place to live.

Let’s look at the 10-year numbers so we can maybe get a feel for trends. This is data reported by the FBI which is collected by the Warrington police department from 2010 to 2020. So, this might be the reason some of those top 10 lists have mentioned Warrenton. Crime has been relatively low and for whatever reason they kind of saw a spike in 2018 and didn’t even hit 30 per thousand. It looks like it must be about 26 or 27 per thousand. So it’s not even that high. It looks like it jumped up around the lockdown. So that’s actually pretty common. I’ve seen that a lot of numbers jumping up during the lockdown. So even though this looks like it might be trending up. It’s still actually not that high.

The next town which is right next door is Astoria. As you can see with Astoria in the image above, we’ve got some red. And the grade for Astoria is a D minus. Violent crime is a C+. Property crime is an F, so higher property crime. Not so much the violent crime. The red is mostly near the downtown area. Your chance of being a victim of crime in Astoria may be as high as 1 in 4 in the northwest neighborhoods, or as low as 1 in 47 in the southeast part of the city. I’m not sure where they’re getting that. Again, that seems kind of high so they may have found some sort of metric that will back that up but me personally I’ve always felt pretty safe. It’s pretty nice. I don’t think any of these areas are really too bad. Maybe some areas along the water where you see the red but all in all Astoria is pretty nice.

Next is Seaside which actually has a neighborhood that made our top neighborhoods video/blog known as the Seaside Cove neighborhood with is in the southern part of town on Sunset Blvd. As you can see from the graphic above, the red at right around downtown. On the other side of the river is where Broadway is located at which is where the turnaround is. If you’ve ever been to Seaside and stayed for a bit you probably drove down Broadway to the turnaround. That’s where Hood to Coast ends. Around the red area is where Safeway and a lot of the shopping is. As well as the outlet mall. I’ve spent a lot of time around downtown Seaside where the red is. Personally, I have never really felt unsafe or really seen anything that made me feel unsafe in these areas so if this is the worst that Seaside has it’s probably not actually that bad.

Let’s take a look at the ten year for Seaside. Crime actually kind of spiked in 2017 and then you see some lockdown pandemic stuff probably driving numbers back up again but that’s spiked up to almost to 80 out of 1000 people but now it’s down here back in the 30 so still relatively low and it looks like we’re trending down.

Next, we have Coos Bay. Coos Bay as you can see from the image above, there’s another town right here called North Bend. These two kind of go hand in hand. The areas is kind of known as the Coos Bay/North Bend area. It’s one of the larger areas on the Oregon Coast. This is one of those areas I mentioned sometimes you might see some of the homeless transient people. Some people walking around the streets that might look like they’re on drugs such as meth. You might see that a little bit of that and you might see that kind thing around the downtown shops bay area but definitely nothing close to the levels that you would see in a big city such as Portland. Crimegrade gives them and B- for violent crime. property crime is a D-. Again, it’s the high property crime. Likely the drugs are causing some of this. Chances of being a violent crime victim in Coos Bay is 1 in 307 in on the high side and 1 in 863 on the low side in the southeast part of city so that’s pretty low. To give you a little further context in the state of Oregon your chance of being a victim of violent crime is 1 in 352. So, a lot of these numbers are well below the state average or at least this one is right here. California is 1 in 227. So if you compare that to California definitely, it’s lower than California.

Next is Lincoln City. As you can see there is a lot of red in Lincoln City. I’ve spent a lot of time in Lincoln City. The casino is a popular place. They also have outlet malls just like Seaside that attracts a lot of people. Crimegrade gave them an F overall grade and D- for property crime. So just like all these other towns looks like it’s a lot of property crime. I personally think Lincoln City is a nice place to visit or live. When you visit there, it doesn’t look run down. It doesn’t look like there’s a lot of crime. Chance of being a victim of violent crime is 1 in 246 again that’s lower than California and that’s in the worst neighborhood. The best neighborhood as low as 1 in 800 so you know again the numbers don’t really necessarily rank so much with that rating so that’s how you kind of see some of these websites that have lists with the worst neighborhoods the most dangerous neighborhoods. When you dig into the numbers it’s really not that bad all.

Let’s look at the 10-year as reported by the Lincoln City police department. They’re about average here in the last few years but they’re down coming from 2018 almost touching 60 per thousand people 55 per thousand people so a little bit higher than some of those smaller towns than Warrenton, Astoria or Seaside. But kind of more in line with Coos Bay. But again, you compare that statewide or compare that to other states it’s still pretty low.

Next is Florence. As you can see in the graphic above, there’s a little bit of orange in here but we’ve got some green, some yellow as well but no red. Florence is a pretty small town and again they get F from crimegrade and again it’s the property crime not the violent crime so you’re probably not going to get attacked by some random person. Violent crime victim chances are as low as 1 in 504 as high as 1 in 86. So very similar to a lot of the other Oregon Coast towns. Property crimes maybe a little bit higher again for the state may be on par but compared to other states and nationally pretty low and your violent crime is definitely on the lower side.

Finally, we have Tillamook. We’ve got some red, some orange, some green. Again, it’s not the violet crime, it’s the property crime. The chance of being a victim of crime is as much as 1 and 13 on the high side 1 and 49 on the low side. For violent crime through again much lower so that’s kind of what you should expect along the Oregon Coast. Your crime rate might be a little bit higher in some places compared to statewide or nationally but it’s mostly property crime not a ton of violent crime.

Let’s take a look finally at the 10 year. Pretty low topping out in 2018. Currently trending down. As you can see chances are somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 13 people per thousand people will experience a crime so overall that’s pretty low. Overall, I would say Tillamook is a pretty safe place. I’ve always felt safe there. I think it’s a nice place to go. It’s always looked nice. Visually it doesn’t look run down. Definitely check out the new Tillamook Cheese factory. You don’t see a lot of crazy people are trash or anything like that so I think some of the things and some of these numbers are a little bit misleading but either way if you are looking for a very specific neighborhood regardless of where you’re looking along the Oregon coast if you want to buy or sell a home, get in touch with us.

Give us a call or send us an email. Shoot us a text we’ll be here for you for all of your home sale needs along the Oregon coast.

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