The 10 Best Tempe Suburbs To Live In For 2026

The 10 Best Tempe Suburbs To Live For 2026

Paradise Valley is always mentioned as one of the best suburbs in the Tempe area. We’ll tell you the good about “Awesome Paradise Valley.”

Everyone here is rich; families average $247,159 a year, which is the highest in the Tempe region. And only 2.13% are out of work. Homes average more than $3,474,596 each.

Litchfield Park is the second best ‘burb we looked at near Tempe for 2026.

It ranks 3rd for incomes in the area and only 5.45% of residents lack insurance, good for 5th best.

Here in Gilbert, it’s really safe, and residents are just about as rich as you’ll see in the Tempe metro area.

The bad side? Schools are more crowded, and the cost of living puts a large part of the city out of reach for most families.

But price is based on demand and a lot of people want to live in Gilbert.

Review Of Gilbert by HomeSnacks User

Gilbert, Arizona is a fast growing community in the east valley of phoenix. The schools are absolutely amazing especially Gilbert Public Schools. There is very little crime and a ton of out door splash pads and parks.

The number of restaurants grows buy the month! Down town Gilbert has such a fun family friendly vibe with a farmers market every week. Gilbert is appealing to young families because of the safe neighborhoods and the great schools.

Scottsdale ranks as the 4th best suburb of Tempe for 2026.

You won’t find many better places to raise your kids in the region than in Scottsdale and the schools are some of the best around.

Coming in as the fifth best is Queen Creek.

Queen Creek gets kudos for having the 5th most expensive homes in the Tempe area, where houses sell for an average of $632,223. However, the cost of living here is among the highest in the area.

Review Of Queen Creek by HomeSnacks User

Very low crime rate; neighborhoods are all tree lined; and there are lots of cafes and shopping.

The movie theater is my favorite place. You don’t have to fight for a seat. However, the traffic is horrible. You can’t get anywhere quickly. It takes along time to get anywhere. Theres street lights at every quarter mile I think

Fountain Hills is proud of its 6th place finish on this list. And here’s why.

Most residents have great jobs and the unemployment rate sits at 5.34%.

According to online reports, Fountain Hills is quickly becoming one of the more affluent suburbs in the Tempe area, meaning you need to get in soon.

The 7th best suburb on our list goes to Chandler.

Chandler schools are some of the best in the region, and crime is really low. The cost of living makes it a lot more desirable for many families, especially first-time home buyers.

And, it’s only 8.5 miles to downtown, which is a good thing.

Santa Cruz is growing quickly, and for a good reason. Crime is far below average, and most residents are gainfully employed. Even the cost of living is reasonable.

A solid 3.77% of people lack insurance, good for 2nd in the area.

Review Of Santa Cruz by HomeSnacks User

Lived here my whole life and it was as fine until the 2000’s after which the homeless population sprouted yet was supported with needle exchange and medical marijuana.

Can’t beat twin lakes beach st the harbor- 3 great restaurants on the water, breakfast at the Palo mar or cross nest is great.

Crackheads everywhere and people smoking weed next to cops on the street

Is ‘Everything Better In Goodyear?’

Almost.

It placed 9th on our list thanks to the fact that it’s really expensive to live here, but the schools are great, so you get what you pay for in that regard.

And rounding out the top ten for 2026 is Goodyear.

This city is far above average in every category, and the best part? It’s far more affordable than the other cities listed above. So, you get a big bang for your buck here.

Methodology: How We Determined The Best Suburbs Around Tempe for 2026

Figuring out the best suburbs around Tempe was simple. We used Saturday Night Science to find things people like about living in the suburbs and then locate the suburbs with those things.

We analyzed the newest American Community Survey data for 2020-2024 to research each suburb. We decided upon the following criteria:

• Low unemployment rate
• High median household incomes
• Population density (lots of things to do)
• High home values
• A lot of college-educated people
• Low poverty
• High rate of insured families

We defined a suburb as being within 30 miles of Tempe.

Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 5,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 21 suburbs to evaluate around Tempe.

We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 21 in each category, where 1 was the “best.

Next, we averaged the rankings for each place to create a quality-of-life index.

Finally, we crowned the city with the best quality of life index, the “Best Suburb near Tempe.” We’re lookin’ at you, Paradise Valley.

This result may differ from our state-wide data as we did not include commute times and crime for this analysis to allow for a more extensive selection of suburbs.

We updated the data for 2026. This report is our eleventh time ranking the best Tempe suburbs. Skip to the end to see the list of all the suburbs ranked from best to worst.