Next in our city-by-city series: Costa Mesa and Cypress. Both run well above the national rent average, but they get there in different ways — one through a premium coastal-adjacent apartment market, the other through a smaller, more owner-occupied rental pool.
Costa Mesa: one of the priciest apartment markets in the county
Costa Mesa’s average apartment rent runs around $2,842, per RentCafe’s 2026 data, with the citywide median across all property types closer to $3,006. Rent here sits roughly 53% above the national average, and 35% of rentals in the city — the largest single share — go for $3,000 or more per month. Two-bedroom units average around $3,181, and three-bedrooms push past $3,500.
For owners, Costa Mesa is a market where premium pricing is genuinely supported by demand — but it also means a property that’s even slightly overpriced relative to true comparables will be competing directly against a large pool of similarly priced, well-maintained units.
Cypress: a smaller rental pool with mixed signals
Cypress tells a more complicated story. Rent estimates vary more here than in most cities we’ve covered — RentCafe puts the average around $2,640 (up modestly year-over-year), while another source shows a notably higher $2,830 average that’s actually down about 10% from a year ago. That kind of divergence usually points to a smaller sample size or a shift in the mix of available units, rather than a single clean trend, so these figures should be treated as more directional than precise for Cypress specifically. One-bedrooms average around $2,311, two-bedrooms around $2,856.
What’s clearer is the composition of the city itself: only about 32% of Cypress households are renter-occupied, compared to 68% owner-occupied — a notably higher owner-occupied share than most cities in this series so far. That points to a smaller, tighter rental pool overall, which can work in an owner’s favor (less direct competition) but also means fewer comparable listings to price against with confidence.
What this means if you own in either market
In Costa Mesa, lean on solid comparables in a genuinely competitive, premium apartment market — the ceiling is real, but so is the competition at that price point. In Cypress, be more cautious about which data source you’re trusting for pricing, and factor in that a smaller rental pool means less room for error if a unit is priced outside what the limited comparable set supports.
Neither city had reliable vacancy-specific data available in this search; as a directional reference, Orange County’s broader multifamily vacancy rate has been running around 4.0–4.3% in 2026, per the Kidder Mathews data cited in our earlier countywide report.
Own a rental in Costa Mesa, Cypress, or elsewhere in Orange County and want to know how your property compares to current market data? Reach out to Smart One Property Management.
Sources: RentCafe, Average Rent in Costa Mesa, CA; RentCafe, Average Rent in Cypress, CA; Zillow Rental Manager, Average Rental Price in Cypress, CA.
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