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Place dossier plate
SheetFL-DELRAY-BEACH-FL · Delray Beach, FL 66,940 pop · income 61st pct
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Delray Beach
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Delray Beach on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Ocala · lowest
53,520
Ocala · lowest
53,520 median HH income
38.1% of the leader · rank #1
Owasso · near
79,386
Owasso · near
79,386 median HH income
56.5% of the leader · rank #2
Rochester · near
79,388
Rochester · near
79,388 median HH income
56.5% of the leader · rank #3
Delray Beach · this city
79,393
Delray Beach · this city
79,393 median HH income
56.5% of the leader · rank #4
Prattville · near
79,396
Prattville · near
79,396 median HH income
56.5% of the leader · rank #5
Lanai · near
79,405
Lanai · near
79,405 median HH income
56.5% of the leader · rank #6
Weston · highest
140,501
Weston · highest
140,501 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Delray Beach on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 66,940.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Delray Beach - the verdict
Nationally, Delray Beach sits in the 61st percentile for household income and the 15th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
61st
percentile, household income
76th
percentile, home value
73rd
percentile, median rent
15th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Delray Beach, FL
Florida's Delray Beach is a small city, with 66,940 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in Delray Beach brings in $79,393 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 7.4%. Home values in Delray Beach run a median of $386,700, and the median resident age is 51.8 years. Educational attainment runs 41.1% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 57.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 191 residential building permits were authorized in Delray Beach (Building Boom), up 57% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Delray Beach's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 3052.5 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Florida carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Florida at 103.4 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Above Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,526 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $225 across Florida, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 75.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Delray Beach's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from housing and income to population change to schools and households to comparison shortlist to reported crime to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Delray Beach, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Delray Beach?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.4%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
Is Delray Beach growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +2,988 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +4.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 191 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What does the education layer cover for Delray Beach?
The NCES join finds 10 public schools within the city match. 41.1% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
Which cities make useful reference points for Delray Beach?
Within Florida, the closest population matches are Weston (67,952 residents, $140,501 income); Port Charlotte (64,971 residents, $60,729 income); Ocala (64,903 residents, $53,520 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Waterloo, IA (66,947 residents); Lodi, CA (67,008 residents); Grand Junction, CO (67,027 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Delray Beach?
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3052.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 34% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
2630.6
Violent rate
422.0
Total reported rate
3052.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Delray Beach?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 69.7%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
2.8%
Work from home
17.2%
Drive alone
69.7%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 33,203 workers age 16+.
Above median income · poverty 7.4% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
103.4 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Florida average
D
City profile score · Delray Beach, FL
45/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Bachelor's+ share B+
41.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income C
$79,393
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate C-
7.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
103.4 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime F
422 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Delray Beach profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 76/100 (B+) · 41.1%
Household income: 59/100 (C) · $79,393
Poverty rate: 50/100 (C-) · 7.4%
Cost of living: 25/100 (F) · 103.4 index
Violent crime: 21/100 (F) · 422 /100k
Where Delray Beach sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Delray Beach's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Delray Beach highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Delray Beach, FL (this city): home $386,700, crime 3,053/100k
Waterloo, IA : home $150,200, crime 2,921/100k
Grand Junction, CO : home $358,300, crime 3,716/100k
Davis, CA : home $829,000, crime 2,398/100k
Madera, CA : home $335,900, crime 1,571/100k
Ocala, FL : home $219,900, crime 3,549/100k
Sanford, FL : home $272,900, crime 2,795/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Delray Beach compare to other US cities?
Where Delray Beach sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income61% higher than other cities
Home value76% pricier than other cities
Median rent73% pricier than other cities
Safety15% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Florida, Delray Beach ranks #102 of 120 Florida cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Delray Beach against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Florida only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Florida-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Delray Beach near the bottom of Florida's cities
Among the 930 Florida cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Delray Beach ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Delray Beach only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#325 of 903
64th percentile in Florida
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 930
0th percentile in Florida
Median Home Value
#247 of 894
72nd percentile in Florida
Poverty Rate
#484 of 930
48th percentile in Florida
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#231 of 930
75th percentile in Florida
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Florida only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
61st percentile nationally for median household income · 15th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Delray Beach's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Delray Beach's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Delray Beach's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$386,70024th percentilemore affordable than 24% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Delray Beach's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#12,666 of 15,516
More affordable than 18% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#438 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 4.9×, Delray Beach sits in the moderate band:
national rank #12,666 of 15,516 and #438 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$79,393Delray Beach, FL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Delray Beach, FL median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Delray Beach, FL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)41.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
66,940
Median Income
$79,393
Median Home Value
$386,700
Median Age
51.8
Poverty Rate
7.4%
Labor force participation
57.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
41.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3052.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
422.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2630.6
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Schools
Total Schools
10
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Delray Beach's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
66,821 residents
2021
66,703 residents
2022
67,686 residents
2023
68,763 residents
2024
69,827 residents
2025
69,809 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
191
housing units authorized
Single-Family
108
detached homes
Multifamily
83
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.9
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
122
107
15
$63.8M
2020
131
109
22
$65.5M
2021
273
97
176
$87.6M
2022
269
92
177
$81.4M
2023
585
133
452
$168.7M
2024
191
108
83
$117.5M
Permit volume increased 57% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
69.7%
Carpool
6.3%
Public Transit
2.8%
Walk
1.7%
Work from Home
17.2%
Other
2.3%
Based on 33,203 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Florida statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $225
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Florida at $225 (electricity about $145 , water and sewer about $55 ).
These are Florida statewide averages, not a meter reading for Delray Beach. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Florida's BEA cost-of-living index is 103.4 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Delray Beach is $1,526/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Florida statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 75.7 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Florida statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Delray Beach sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Delray Beach compares to similar-size Florida cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.