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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-BREA-CA · Brea, CA 47,337 pop · income 89th pct
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Brea
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Brea on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Monroe · lowest
36,521
Monroe · lowest
36,521 median HH income
22.1% of the leader · rank #1
Tichigan · near
124,821
Tichigan · near
124,821 median HH income
75.7% of the leader · rank #2
Brea · this city
124,837
Brea · this city
124,837 median HH income
75.7% of the leader · rank #3
Grandwood Park · near
124,847
Grandwood Park · near
124,847 median HH income
75.7% of the leader · rank #4
Holiday Lakes · near
124,853
Holiday Lakes · near
124,853 median HH income
75.7% of the leader · rank #5
Governors · near
124,857
Governors · near
124,857 median HH income
75.7% of the leader · rank #6
Newark · highest
164,909
Newark · highest
164,909 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Brea on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 47,337.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Brea - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Brea places in the 89th percentile for household income and the 15th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
89th
percentile, household income
96th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
15th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Brea, CA
California's Brea is a small city, with 47,337 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $124,837 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 4.5%. Brea's housing stock carries a median value of $874,300, and the median resident age is 39.6 years. About 50.2% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 62.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 1 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 100% from five years earlier. Brea's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 3075.6 crimes per 100,000 residents, above the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
California carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, California scores 110.7 (Well Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $2,053 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in California run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 88.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Brea's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from housing and income to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to schools and households to reported crime to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Brea, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Brea?
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 7.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.5%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 76.5%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Which cities make useful reference points for Brea?
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
Within California, the closest population matches are Rancho Santa Margarita (47,257 residents, $146,827 income); Newark (47,145 residents, $164,909 income); La Mirada (46,945 residents, $110,177 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Binghamton, NY (47,357 residents); Monroe, LA (47,241 residents); Roseville, MI (47,240 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
The NCES join finds 10 public schools within the city match. 50.2% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Brea?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3075.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 35% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
Total reported rate
3075.6
Violent rate
210.6
Property rate
2865.0
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +19 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
2020 estimate
47,241
2025 estimate
47,260
Period change
+0.0%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
C
City profile score · Brea, CA
59/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Household income A
$124,837
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A-
50.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate B-
4.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime D
211 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living F
110.7 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Brea profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 88/100 (A) · $124,837
Bachelor's+ share: 84/100 (A-) · 50.2%
Poverty rate: 69/100 (B-) · 4.5%
Violent crime: 46/100 (D) · 211 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Brea sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Brea's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Brea highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Brea, CA (this city): home $874,300, crime 3,076/100k
Binghamton, NY : home $117,400, crime 3,946/100k
Monroe, LA : home $174,800, crime 7,626/100k
Roseville, MI : home $142,700, crime 3,833/100k
Mentor, OH : home $229,500, crime 1,473/100k
Oro Valley, AZ : home $440,400, crime 1,200/100k
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA : home $907,900, crime 605/100k
Newark, CA : home $1,094,200, crime 4,344/100k
La Mirada, CA : home $763,200, crime 1,966/100k
Los Banos, CA : home $419,600, crime 2,047/100k
How does Brea compare to other US cities?
Brea measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income89% higher than other cities
Home value96% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety15% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at California, Brea ranks #364 of 441 California cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Brea against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to California only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
California-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Brea near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Brea ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Brea only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#290 of 1,338
78th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#306 of 1,343
77th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#893 of 1,450
38th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#271 of 1,458
81st percentile in California
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within California only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
89th percentile nationally for median household income · 15th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Brea's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Brea's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Brea's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$874,3004th percentilemore affordable than 4% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Brea's home-value-to-income ratio: 7.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,669 of 15,516
More affordable than 5% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,110 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 7.0×, Brea sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,669 of 15,516 and #3,110 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$124,837Brea, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Brea, CA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Brea, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)50.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
47,337
Median Income
$124,837
Median Home Value
$874,300
Median Age
39.6
Poverty Rate
4.5%
Labor force participation
62.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
50.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3075.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
210.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2865.0
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Schools
Total Schools
10
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Brea's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
47,241 residents
2021
46,879 residents
2022
47,364 residents
2023
47,812 residents
2024
47,656 residents
2025
47,260 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
1
housing units authorized
Single-Family
1
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
709
40
669
$95.9M
2020
25
25
0
$7.1M
2021
29
4
25
$9.1M
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
2
2
0
$0.3M
2024
1
1
0
$0.8M
Permit volume decreased 100% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
76.5%
Carpool
7.3%
Public Transit
0.7%
Walk
1.1%
Work from Home
12.9%
Other
1.5%
Based on 22,847 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
California statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $275
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across California at $275 (electricity about $150 , water and sewer about $70 ).
These are California statewide averages, not a meter reading for Brea. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
California's BEA cost-of-living index is 110.7 (Well Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Brea is $2,053/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to California statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 88.7 / 100 (Very High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a California statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Brea sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Brea compares to similar-size California cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.