Seal Beach, California.
Typical home $838,369 (+4.5% in a year), asking rent $2,935 (-4.4%). Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,434 (+124%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $36,237 +5%
- $802,132$838,369 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $188,520 +29%
- $649,849$838,369 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.
- Seal Beach$4,400
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Seal Beach, CA rose 4.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Seal Beach, CA fell 4.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Seal Beach runs $2,822/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,983 in Oct 2023.
That is $5,757 a month against $2,935 rent: a $4,400 mortgage payment, plus $459 property tax and $898 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Seal Beach
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$5,757
- Renting$2,935
- Mortgage only$4,400
Property tax · $459/mo 0.66% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Orange County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $898/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 Seal Beach, Orange County, California
Seal Beach is a city of 25,242 people in Orange County. Half its households earn more than $85,964 a year and half less, against $116,289 across Orange County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 77% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in Seal Beach was 5.1% in August 2026, and Orange County had 0.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Seal Beach is a city in Orange County where most homes are lived in by their owners, and the population is older than in most places. Incomes run below the county's, and typical home values and rents are both high. Winters are mild and summers warm, with little rain through the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in banks, insurance and property, and in manufacturing. The largest workplaces in town include Target, Ivy Park at Seal Beach and Ralphs Grocery Company. A good share of people work from home, and a four-year degree is common among adults.
Things to do. The San Gabriel River runs in or beside town. A short drive away are the amusement parks Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. For a bigger outing, SoFi Stadium is a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 12,837households
- 51%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 26%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 67° and lows near 47°; warmest in August, with highs near 83° and lows near 66°. About 12 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Long Beach Daugherty Field weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Seal Beach
- TargetDiscount department stores200
- Ivy Park at Seal BeachAssisted-living facilities without on-site nursing care facilities158
- Ralphs Grocery CompanySupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores121
- Boeing Encore Interiors - Seal BeachAircraft manufacturing117
- VonsSupermarkets and other grocery stores97
- Kohl's79
- Seal BeachMail and parcel delivery47
- CosmodyneGas liquefying machinery manufacturing46
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 9 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 891 people in all. 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 Seal BeachRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Seal Beach’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.
Seal Beach home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Seal Beach$838,369
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Seal Beach listings, and the typical home goes pending in 38 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Seal Beach26.17%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Seal Beach38
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Seal Beach134
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Seal Beach40
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Seal Beach$386,747
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Seal Beach99.34%
Zip codes with a Seal Beach address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Seal Beach — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.