Palm Beach tops the list of Florida’s 20 “wealthiest suburbs,” according to a new analysis released by GOBankingRates.com.
And the island town ranked No. 13 among the 50 most affluent suburbs in the U.S., according to a separate analysis from the same website.
Among the factors analysts considered in Palm Beach’s rankings were its average household income of $356,467 and its typical home value of $10.21 million, according to the studies.
The website reviewed municipalities with 5,000 households or more and isolated the “suburbs” with the highest average household incomes from the 2023 American Community Survey, according to statements released in July with the analyses. Additional sourced factors included U.S. Census data from each suburb’s so-called “metro area,” and the 2025 typical home value, based on information available on the real estate website Zillow.com.
Although it might strike some real estate observers as odd, the website considers Palm Beach to be a suburb of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area, a designation used by U.S. Census officials. Fort Lauderdale is about 50 miles south of Palm Beach, and Miami is about 72 miles south.
Palm Beach might seem more logically referenced in relation to the Palm Beach County metro area of West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, another geographical area designated by the U.S. Census.
In any case, Palm Beach is seldom referred to by observers as a “suburb.”
In the state rankings, Palm Beach was trailed in the No. 2 spot by Pinecrest, near Miami, with an average household income of $312,591 and a typical home value of $2.4 million. In the No. 3 spot was Lake Butler, near Orlando, with an average household income of $289,593 and a typical home value of $748,699.
On the list of wealthiest U.S. suburbs, Pinecrest ranked No. 20 and Lake Butler landed in the No. 40 spot. They joined Palm Beach as the only Florida suburbs on the national Top 50 list.
The wealthiest two suburbs on the national list were both in New York and both are suburbs of New York City. Scarsdale ranked No. 1 with an average household income of $601,193 and a typical home value of $1.2 million. Ranked No. 2 was Rye, where the average household income is $421,259 and a typical home value is $1.9 million. In the third spot on the U.S. list was West University Place, a suburb of Houston, with a mean household income of $409,677 and a typical home value of $982,834.
Even though Palm Beach has a reputation as one of the wealthiest towns in the country, it often ranks lower than might be expected on national lists of this sort. Point to, in part, the wide diversity of housing in the town, which helps dilute the concentration of individual household wealth.
The town, after all, has more than 2,200 single-family homes, more than 5,200 condominium units and more than 900 cooperative apartments, according to the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s office. Housing in Palm Beach ranges from oceanfront mansions that can sell for more than $100 million to studio condos worth a tiny fraction of that amount.
At least 68 billionaires owned property in Palm Beach in the latest analysis of Forbes data by the Palm Beach Daily News. But plenty of residents have a much lower net worth. In all, the town’s population numbered 9,245 in the 2020 Census.
Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tips about real estate news on the island. Email dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: How did Palm Beach rank on lists of richest ‘suburbs’ in Florida and U.S.? Take a look.
Reporting by Darrell Hofheinz, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
