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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-LAGUNA-HILLS-CA · Laguna Hills, CA 30,921 pop · income 88th 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 Laguna Hills
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Laguna Hills on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Morristown · lowest
44,811
Morristown · lowest
44,811 median HH income
17.9% of the leader · rank #1
Huxley · near
122,716
Huxley · near
122,716 median HH income
49.1% of the leader · rank #2
Sanibel · near
122,730
Sanibel · near
122,730 median HH income
49.1% of the leader · rank #3
Laguna Hills · this city
122,778
Laguna Hills · this city
122,778 median HH income
49.1% of the leader · rank #4
Stony Point · near
122,828
Stony Point · near
122,828 median HH income
49.1% of the leader · rank #5
Heathrow · near
122,837
Heathrow · near
122,837 median HH income
49.1% of the leader · rank #6
Los Altos · highest
250,001
Los Altos · highest
250,001 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 Laguna Hills 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: 30,921.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Laguna Hills - the verdict
Nationally, Laguna Hills sits in the 88th percentile for household income and the 50th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
88th
percentile, household income
97th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
50th
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: Laguna Hills, CA
Laguna Hills is a small city in California, home to 30,921 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Laguna Hills report a median income of $122,778 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 5.9%. Laguna Hills's housing stock carries a median value of $944,000, and the median resident age is 43.1 years. 52.9% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 62.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 6 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 100% from five years earlier. Laguna Hills reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1364.8 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not 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 Laguna Hills'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 schools and households to population change to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Laguna Hills, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
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.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Laguna Hills?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 7.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 5.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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.
What does the education layer cover for Laguna Hills?
The NCES join finds 4 public schools within the city match. 52.9% 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.
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.
Is Laguna Hills growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -1,293 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -4.1% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 6 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Which cities make useful reference points for Laguna Hills?
Within California, the closest population matches are La Verne (30,804 residents, $104,565 income); Los Altos (30,736 residents, $250,000+ income); Lawndale (31,113 residents, $83,538 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Bella Vista, AR (30,935 residents); Springfield, VA (30,894 residents); Morristown, TN (30,983 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.
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.
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Laguna Hills?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 68.7%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.4%
Work from home
19.9%
Drive alone
68.7%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 15,743 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Laguna Hills?
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.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1364.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 40% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1130.6
Violent rate
234.2
Total reported rate
1364.8
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
C
City profile score · Laguna Hills, CA
56/100
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
$122,778
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A
52.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate C+
5.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime D
234 /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.
Laguna Hills profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 87/100 (A) · $122,778
Bachelor's+ share: 86/100 (A) · 52.9%
Poverty rate: 60/100 (C+) · 5.9%
Violent crime: 43/100 (D) · 234 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Laguna Hills sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Laguna Hills'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 - Laguna Hills highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Laguna Hills, CA (this city): home $944,000, crime 1,365/100k
Bella Vista, AR : home $262,400, crime 691/100k
Morristown, TN : home $155,700, crime 3,236/100k
Ballwin, MO : home $353,400, crime 540/100k
La Verne, CA : home $793,900, crime 2,586/100k
Los Altos, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 1,289/100k
Lawndale, CA : home $726,000, crime 2,459/100k
Banning, CA : home $322,900, crime 1,392/100k
Santa Paula, CA : home $559,300, crime 1,201/100k
How does Laguna Hills compare to other US cities?
Where Laguna Hills sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income88% higher than other cities
Home value97% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety50% 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, Laguna Hills ranks #121 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 Laguna Hills 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 Laguna Hills near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Laguna Hills ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Laguna Hills only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#305 of 1,338
77th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#270 of 1,343
80th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#765 of 1,450
47th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#245 of 1,458
83rd 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
88th percentile nationally for median household income · 50th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Laguna Hills's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Laguna Hills'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 Laguna Hills's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$944,0003rd percentilemore affordable than 3% 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
Laguna Hills's home-value-to-income ratio: 7.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,930 of 15,516
More affordable than 4% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,178 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 7.7×, Laguna Hills sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,930 of 15,516 and #3,178 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
$122,778Laguna Hills, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Laguna Hills, 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 Laguna Hills, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)52.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)5.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
30,921
Median Income
$122,778
Median Home Value
$944,000
Median Age
43.1
Poverty Rate
5.9%
Labor force participation
62.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
52.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1364.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
234.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1130.6
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
4
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Laguna Hills's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
31,313 residents
2021
30,977 residents
2022
30,637 residents
2023
30,363 residents
2024
30,275 residents
2025
30,020 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
6
housing units authorized
Single-Family
6
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
3
3
0
$0.2M
2020
3
3
0
$3.1M
2021
1
1
0
$0.2M
2022
6
6
0
$2.3M
2023
1
1
0
$0.9M
2024
6
6
0
$5.0M
Permit volume increased 100% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
68.7%
Carpool
8.3%
Public Transit
0.4%
Walk
1.0%
Work from Home
19.9%
Other
1.7%
Based on 15,743 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 Laguna Hills. 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 Laguna Hills 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 Laguna Hills sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Laguna Hills 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.