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Study shows OP top spot for safety, home ownership

OCEAN PINES – In two recent studies, Ocean Pines scored near the top.
It made the list of one of the best places in Maryland for home ownership and the list for the safest places in Maryland.
Consumer finance Web site www.nerdwallet.com analyzed data about homeownership and Ocean Pines came in sixth.
According to the Web site, Nerdwallet looked at the 123 communities in the state with more than 10,000 residents to determines which ones were best for homebuyers. Most of the communities have 20,000 or fewer residents and are located no more than 35 miles from big cities.
Analysts looked at availability of homes. Areas with a high rate of home ownership scored higher than others.
The also looked at affordability to see if homeowners could live comfortably in the area.  Population growth was also a determining factor. Areas attracting new residents general show signs of a robust economy, according to the Web site.
Its information about Ocean Pines says it has nine miles of waterfront, the lowest median selected monthly homeowners costs at $1,730 and the lowest median monthly household income at $6,107.
However, it also states that one of the reasons it was chosen as one of the best places to live is its high home ownership rate of 91.7 percent. Ocean Pines is considered to have nearly 50 percent of it residents classified as renters, not homeowners.
According to Maggie Clark of Nerdwallet, the data used came from the American Community Survey. The Web site she provided, http://factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/12_5YR/DP04/1600000US2458275, says Ocean Pines has 8,633 total housing units. Of those, 4,687 are occupied and 3,946 are vacant, according to the site.
It also says that of the 4,687 occupied housing units, 4,299 are owner-occupied and 388 are occupied by renters.
Also, Ocean Pines is ranked the second safest place in the area by Movoto, a real estate research site. The community is nearly twice the size of the No. 1 place and so it naturally saw more crime in 2012, according to the new Ocean Pines newsletter.
That year, there were 14 violent crimes and property crimes. Those 14 violent crimes were 13 aggravated assaults and one robbery.
Forty-one of the property crimes were thefts and 40 were burglaries. Two were motor vehicle thefts.
“Even with this higher number of total crimes, residents here had a very small chance of actually being the victim of a crime, just one out of 123 odds,” according to the newsletter. “This is what pushed Ocean Pines to the top of their list.”
Hampstead was ranked the safest place to live in the state. Ocean Pines was followed by Thurmont, Glenarden and Taneytown.
The Web site ranked the 10 safest places to live based on the FBI’s 2012 state crime report. It ranked towns with a population of at least 5,000 residents and compared violent crime numbers, the amount of property crime and the odds of a resident being a victim of a crime.
For more information, visit Movoto’s Web site at movoto.com/end/safest-places-in-marylandinformation.