Costa Mesa CA may not as well known as its nearby neighbors, but that doesn't mean it disappoints as a city. It's a good place to start off your professional career or invest in a home if you're a new couple. Students and recent grads can find slightly more reasonable rents while homeowners can start setting down roots. Wherever you are in Costa Mesa, you're mere minutes from the coast, and this area will likely only continue to raise in terms of property values. In the year 2000 the average price for a home was in the $200,000's. Now, the median price for a home is just under $775,000.
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With these types of home values, the majority of people living in this area are well off. Over 50% of the population makes $75,000 a year or more with one-fifth of the population identify as working in the education field (likely professionals working for UCI or University of California Irvine.) You'll find about 75% of the people are White with the next highest percentage being Asian Pacific Islander, and 51% of the population is either single person or non-family (likely students) households. The largest concentration of people are 44 to 64 at 31% with 26% being 25 to 39. The rest of the demographics are made up by married couples without children or single parents with children. Only 16% of the population are traditional family households (married couples with children.) Luckily this is an extremely safe area to live in regardless of your household situation. Theft makes up the majority of crimes with very few assault or other violent crimes on a yearly basis.
Source: wikimedia.org
Costa Mesa CA is in Orange County, which generally offers a quieter lifestyle than it's LA county counterpart. Any town near the coast will attract some amount of tourists, but this is not yet a destination hotspot. However, you are right next to Newport Beach and a stone's throw from Huntington Beach, so there will be some backlash from the summer crowds — especially considering Costa Mesa hosts the OC Fair which can attract more than a million people over the course of 23 days around July and August. You can also expect South Coast Plaza, or Costa Mesa's main shopping mall, to be packed practically year round with locals. While it's not known for being as fancy as nearby Laguna or Newport Beach, you might be surprised at how much the landscape changes in the coming years. With the quick growth in home values, you can be certain the standard of living will change considerably. This means more property construction, more expensive businesses and even more changing demographics in terms of race or industry. With that, you may see more tourists on the horizon.
Source: wikimedia.org
There are practically no limits on what Southern California offers you. Costa Mesa puts you between Los Angeles and San Diego which gives you plenty of options to take weekend trips to the larger cities, but it also puts you close to plenty of other beautiful places in Orange County. Close to Newport Beach and Balboa Island where you can check out their lavish homes and yachts or head to Fashion Island (an extremely elaborate outdoor mall.) You can also visit the Fun Zone for a cheap date with an arcade and Ferris wheel with dive bars close by to play pool and darts on a Friday night. There's also Huntington Beach where you can see the official Surf City USA up close and personal. There's a huge row of restaurants, bars and clubs on its main street that run the gamut of cuisine and decor. Laguna Beach is a bit more upper crust, and you can find high-end dining establishments there with art galleries and some tremendous views of the ocean from the many hills there. Speaking of hills, you may also want to take up hiking on the weekends when living in Costa Mesa. Trails at Crystal Cove State Park get your blood pumping so you can live a healthier lifestyle, and get a birds-eye advantage of the towns from on high. While Orange County lacks the eclectic feel of Los Angeles, there are still plenty of things to do. There's also far less traffic here than in LA, although the word 'less' is relative. About 75% of the people here driver their own cars, so rush hour can still be a frustrating experience (even in the winter.) You may also find yourself at Irvine's Spectrum, which is where big name entertainers will perform their shows in yet another elegant plaza with shops and restaurants galore. It's hard to exhaust your options living anywhere near Costa Mesa.
