Costa Mesa California City Guide

Of Costa Mesa’s more than 113,000 residents, 49.6% are female and 50.3% are male. The city’s population has increased by 3.4% since 2010 and is growing at a rate of 0.49% every year.

Costa Mesa has a relatively young population with a median age of 35 years. An estimated 29% of the residents are aged 35 to 54 years, and 20% are aged 25 to 34 years.

Spanning over 16 miles, Costa Mesa has a population density of 7,286 people per square mile.

In terms of racial makeup, Costa Mosa is relatively more diverse than most cities in California. 72% are White residents, 8.4% are Asian residents, and around 13% of the population is composed of other races. French, Irish, German, Italian, and English are the other ancestries of residents in the city.

61.3% of the city’s residents speak only English, and 29.4% speak Spanish. 1.9% of the area’s population speaks other Indo-European languages.

Costa Mesa is home to 17 highly-rated public elementary schools, 5 public middle schools, and 10 public high schools.

Over 53,000 or 68% of the adults in the city have gained an education beyond the high school level, with 21% earning a college degree.

Of the adults aged 25 and over, 84.9% are high school graduates. Nearly 22,000 or 40% have a bachelor’s degree, over 5,500 or 6.9% have an associate degree, and nearly 10,000 or 12.3% have graduate degrees.

Approximately 11,000 or 15% of residents aged 25 and over had not graduated from high school.

Costa Mesa has more conveniently priced residential properties than the surrounding Newport Beach area. However, the city’s proximity to the same locations Newport Beach is known for makes Costa Mesa’s real estate market healthy for similar reasons.

These reasons include Costa Mesa’s close proximity to the coast and the city’s easy commuting distances from prime Californian attractions. For the last four years, the median sales price of all residential properties has steadily grown from $600K in 2014 to the three year average of $810K. Two-bedroom properties show a clear upward trend in the last three years ranging between $477K and $580K.

Meanwhile, four bedroom properties show a comparable increase from $580K to $870K in the past three years. Based on trends in number of sold properties over the past ten years, Costa Mesa experiences trackable high and low periods that stretch between two years. Costa Mesa is made up of a majority of properties rented out to tenants, with 41% of residents living in homes they own.

With around 41% of residents living in properties they own and 59% choosing to rent their living space, Costa Mesa’s housing options offer more affordable living arrangements compared to a few of the surrounding cities, while Costa Mesa remains a convenient location for easy travel.

These benefits and many more make the housing options of Costa Mesa attractive to current and prospective residents. Single family homes are the most popular form of housing in Costa Mesa throughout the multiple neighborhoods, but condominiums and apartments are also popular residential properties that are known for being affordable and modern.

Newly constructed properties are some of the more expensive options in Costa Mesa, with properties priced well above the median property value of $800,000. To reflect the rent vs. own population, the majorities of properties are for rent, and properties to own are of high market value.

Costa Mesa enjoys a relatively stable economy. The unemployment rate in the city is 4.8%, well above the 3.7% national unemployment rate. The job market in the area has grown by 0.7% since 2019 and job growth over the next ten years is predicted to reach 32%.

86% of the workers in the city are employed in white-collar jobs that include office, sales, and management positions.

The median household income in the city is $79,207. This is approximately 32% higher than the US average of $53,482 a year.

The average income of a resident in Costa Mesa is $70,358 per year. This is 59% higher than the US average of $28,555 a year. The per capita income in the area is $39,028.

The overall poverty rate in the city is 13%.