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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-MISSION-VIEJO-CA · Mission Viejo, CA 92,415 pop · income 92nd 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 Mission Viejo
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Mission Viejo on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Fort Myers · lowest
62,160
Fort Myers · lowest
62,160 median HH income
45.7% of the leader · rank #1
Big Bend · near
136,042
Big Bend · near
136,042 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #2
Cape St. Clai… · near
136,064
Cape St. Clai… · near
136,064 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #3
Rutherford · near
136,069
Rutherford · near
136,069 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #4
Mission Viejo · this city
136,071
Mission Viejo · this city
136,071 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #5
Peach Lake · near
136,136
Peach Lake · near
136,136 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #6
Greenwich · highest
136,154
Greenwich · highest
136,154 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 Mission Viejo 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: 92,415.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Mission Viejo - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Mission Viejo lands in the 92nd percentile for household income and the 53rd percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
92nd
percentile, household income
97th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
53rd
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: Mission Viejo, CA
California's Mission Viejo is a small city, with 92,415 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Households in Mission Viejo report a median income of $136,071 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 3.1%. Typical homes in Mission Viejo are valued around $946,300, and the median resident age is 46.1 years. Educational attainment runs 51.1% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 60.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 37 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Low Activity). Mission Viejo reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1285.4 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
California carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts California at 110.7 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Above Average). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $2,053 per month. Monthly utility costs average around $275 across California, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Mission Viejo report an average commute of 21.8 minutes, with 69.8% driving alone and 20.0% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 88.7 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Mission Viejo'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 work and mobility to housing and income to population change to comparison shortlist to schools and households to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Mission Viejo, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, annual population history, 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
What does the journey to work look like in Mission Viejo?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 69.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 21.8 minutes.
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.
How far does income reach against housing in Mission Viejo?
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 3.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Is Mission Viejo growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -2,975 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -3.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 37 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Mission Viejo?
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 South Gate (91,836 residents, $71,315 income); Chino (91,775 residents, $103,845 income); Redding (93,268 residents, $69,443 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Hoover, AL (92,401 residents); Bellingham, WA (92,367 residents); Roswell, GA (92,577 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.
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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Mission Viejo?
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 22 public schools within the city match. 51.1% 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.
Poverty estimate
3.1%
Bachelor's degree+
51.1%
Matched public schools
22
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Mission Viejo?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1285.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 44% lower 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
1285.4
Violent rate
99.2
Property rate
1186.2
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
B-
City profile score · Mission Viejo, CA
67/100
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+
$136,071
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A
51.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate B+
3.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime B
99 /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.
Mission Viejo profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 92/100 (A+) · $136,071
Bachelor's+ share: 85/100 (A) · 51.1%
Poverty rate: 78/100 (B+) · 3.1%
Violent crime: 71/100 (B) · 99 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Mission Viejo sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Mission Viejo'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 - Mission Viejo highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Mission Viejo, CA (this city): home $946,300, crime 1,285/100k
Hoover, AL : home $391,300, crime 1,335/100k
Bellingham, WA : home $577,400, crime 4,107/100k
Roswell, GA : home $520,500, crime 1,181/100k
Mount Pleasant, SC : home $667,100, crime 1,300/100k
O'Fallon, MO : home $305,100, crime 538/100k
South Gate, CA : home $608,500, crime 4,125/100k
Chino, CA : home $641,500, crime 2,511/100k
Redding, CA : home $363,800, crime 2,393/100k
Santa Monica, CA : home $1,810,200, crime 5,568/100k
Carson, CA : home $645,600, crime 3,351/100k
Compton, CA : home $546,700, crime 4,417/100k
How does Mission Viejo compare to other US cities?
Mission Viejo measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income92% higher than other cities
Home value97% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety53% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just California and the picture shifts: Mission Viejo ranks #110 of 441 California cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Mission Viejo 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 Mission Viejo near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Mission Viejo ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Mission Viejo only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#228 of 1,338
83rd percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#269 of 1,343
80th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#1,027 of 1,450
29th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#262 of 1,458
82nd 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
92nd percentile nationally for median household income · 53rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Mission Viejo's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Mission Viejo'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 Mission Viejo's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$946,3003rd 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
Mission Viejo's home-value-to-income ratio: 7.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,651 of 15,516
More affordable than 6% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#645 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 7.0×, Mission Viejo sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,651 of 15,516 and #645 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$136,071Mission Viejo, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Mission Viejo, 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 Mission Viejo, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)51.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
92,415
Median Income
$136,071
Median Home Value
$946,300
Median Age
46.1
Poverty Rate
3.1%
Labor force participation
60.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
51.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1285.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
99.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1186.2
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
22
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Mission Viejo's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
93,459 residents
2021
92,524 residents
2022
91,701 residents
2023
91,156 residents
2024
91,112 residents
2025
90,484 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Low Activity
Total Permits (2024)
37
housing units authorized
Single-Family
15
detached homes
Multifamily
22
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.4
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
0
0
0
-
2020
39
14
25
$10.7M
2021
210
32
178
$65.6M
2022
65
34
31
$17.7M
2023
70
15
55
$18.2M
2024
37
15
22
$8.2M
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
21.8 minutes
Drive Alone
69.8%
Carpool
6.4%
Public Transit
0.5%
Walk
1.5%
Work from Home
20.0%
Other
1.8%
Based on 44,808 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 Mission Viejo. 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 Mission Viejo 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 Mission Viejo sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Mission Viejo 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.