Costa Mesa, California.
Typical home $1,419,109 (+6.4% in a year), asking rent $3,121 (+3.2%). Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$4,467 (+150%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $85,582 +6%
- $1,333,527$1,419,109 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $428,880 +43%
- $990,230$1,419,109 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Costa Mesa$7,449
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Costa Mesa, CA rose 6.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Costa Mesa, CA rose 3.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Costa Mesa runs $6,625/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $9,745 a month against $3,121 rent: a $7,449 mortgage payment, plus $778 property tax and $1,519 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Costa Mesa
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$9,745
- Renting$3,121
- Mortgage only$7,449
Property tax · $778/mo 0.66% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Orange County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $1,519/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Costa Mesa, Orange County, California
Costa Mesa is a city of 111,918 people in Orange County. Half its households earn more than $111,505 a year and half less, against $116,289 across Orange County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 40% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 60% are rented. Unemployment in Costa Mesa was 4.0% in August 2026, and Orange County had 0.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in professional services, then schools and health care.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Costa Mesa is a city in Orange County where most homes are rented rather than lived in by their owners. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and a typical home here costs a great deal, as does a typical month's rent. Residents are around the middle in age, and many adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Many residents work in professional and business services, in schools, hospitals and social care, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, or in shops. Among the largest workplaces in Costa Mesa are Newport-Mesa Unified, Orange Coast College and the City of Costa Mesa itself. A fair number of people work from home, and the typical commute is of moderate length.
Things to do. Disneyland, the amusement park, is a short drive away, as is Angel Stadium of Anaheim, a stadium for baseball games and other events. The Santa Ana River, also a short drive off, offers a stretch of open water and shoreline. Winters are mild and summers warm, with little rain through the year.
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- 42,292households
- 45%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 22%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Orange County had 1,663,220 jobs in 2025, 0.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 66° and lows near 48°; warmest in August, with highs near 80° and lows near 67°. About 11 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Santa Ana John Wayne Airport weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Costa Mesa
- Newport-Mesa UnifiedSchool district2,476FTE
- Orange Coast CollegeTwo-year college1,063
- Orange County Department of Education SchoolsSchool district981FTE
- City of Costa Mesa800
- Griswold IndustriesAutomatic valves, industrial-type, manufacturing495
- Macy'sDepartment stores493
- Clark Construction GroupCommercial building construction general contractors422
- NorthgateSupermarket and other grocery retailers409
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 85 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 9,323 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of Costa MesaRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Costa Mesa’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Orange County and the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
Costa Mesa home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Costa Mesa$1,419,109
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Costa Mesa listings, and the typical home goes pending in 22 days — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Costa Mesa25.97%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Costa Mesa22
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Costa Mesa172
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Costa Mesa61
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Costa Mesa$1,443,259
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Costa Mesa98.91%
Zip codes with a Costa Mesa address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Costa Mesa — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Costa Mesa
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 92627 | Costa Mesa | 60,393 | $3,408 | $1,365,513 |
| 92626 | Costa Mesa | 50,708 | $3,048 | $1,453,031 |