LIVING IN SEAL BEACH
Seal Beach is a medium-sized coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of California. With a population of 24,119 people and ten constituent neighborhoods, Seal Beach is the 280th largest community in California.
Seal Beach home prices are not only among the most expensive in California, but Seal Beach real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.
Seal Beach is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 90.76% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Seal Beach is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Seal Beach who work in management occupations (15.47%), sales jobs (14.36%), and office and administrative support (10.97%).
Of important note, Seal Beach is also a city of artists. Seal Beach has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Seal Beach’s character.
One of the nice things about Seal Beach is that it is nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy waterfront activities.
One downside of living in Seal Beach is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Seal Beach, the average commute to work is 31.88 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.
The citizens of Seal Beach are among the most well-educated in the nation: 49.16% of adults in Seal Beach have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree, whereas the average US city has 21.84% holding at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Seal Beach in 2010 was $56,256, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $225,024 for a family of four. However, Seal Beach contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Seal Beach is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Seal Beach home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Seal Beach residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Seal Beach also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 12.27% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Seal Beach include German, English, Irish, Italian, and French.
Seal Beach also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 15.65%.
The most common language spoken in Seal Beach is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Korean.
SEAL BEACH HOUSING MARKET INFORMATION
With 24,119 people, 12,500 houses or apartments, and a median cost of homes of $961,483, Seal Beach house prices are not only among the most expensive in California, Seal Beach real estate also is some of the most expensive in all of America.
Large apartment complexes or high rise apartments are the single most common housing type in Seal Beach, accounting for 37.77% of the city's housing units. Other types of housing that are prevalent in Seal Beach include single-family detached homes ( 34.54%), row houses and other attached homes ( 18.72%), and a few duplexes, homes converted to apartments or other small apartment buildings ( 8.24%). Cities with mostly row houses, apartments, and other high density housing types are relatively uncommon, and characteristic of compact cities that frequently have a downtown or other neighborhoods where amenities are within walking distance and a lot of street life can be seen.
Dwellings in Seal Beach tend to be quite small (one, two, or no bedrooms) and owner occupied. In fact, 67.10% of the homes in Seal Beach have two or fewer bedrooms.
At the end of World War II, American soldiers returned home triumphant and, with the help of the GI Bill, built homes by the millions on the edges of America's cities. These homes were predominantly capes and ranches, modest in size, but built to house a growing middle-class as the 20th century became the American century. Seal Beach's housing was primarily built during this period, from the '40s through the '60s. A full 71.66% of the city's housing hails from this era. Other housing ages represented in Seal Beach include homes built between 1970-1999 ( 21.32%) and housing constructed between 2000 and later ( 4.93%). There's also some housing in Seal Beach built before 1939 ( 2.09%).
SEAL BEACH HOME APPRECIATION RATES
Appreciation rates for homes in Seal Beach have been tracking above average for the last ten years, according to NeighborhoodScout data. The cumulative appreciation rate over the ten years has been 46.15%, which ranks in the top 30% nationwide. This equates to an annual average Seal Beach house appreciation rate of 3.87%.
Over the last year, Seal Beach appreciation rates have trailed the rest of the nation. In the last twelve months, Seal Beach's appreciation rate has been 3.31%, which is lower than appreciation rates in most communities in America. In the latest quarter, NeighborhoodScout's data show that house appreciation rates in Seal Beach were at 1.28%, which equates to an annual appreciation rate of 5.23%.
Relative to California, our data show that Seal Beach's latest annual appreciation rate is lower than 60% of the other cities and towns in California.
One very important thing to keep in mind is that these are average appreciation rates for the city. Individual neighborhoods within Seal Beach differ in their investment potential, sometimes by a great deal. Fortunately, you can use NeighborhoodScout to pinpoint the exact neighborhoods in Seal Beach - or in any city or town - that have the best track record of real estate appreciation, by the latest quarter, the last year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, or even since 2000, to assist you in making the best Seal Beach real estate investment or home purchase decisions.
Reasons To Invest
- Popular Tourist Destination
- Increasing Rental Demand
- High Appreciation Rates
- Population Growth
- Growing Job Market
- Ethnically-Diverse City
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