Newport Heights

Twenty-three homes closed between January 1 and August 17 of 2026, at a median of $2,900,000, or $1,263 a square foot on a median size of 2,563 square feet. Nine landed between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000, seven between $3,000,000 and $5,000,000, four above $5,000,000, two between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 and one below $1,000,000, with a low of $860,000 and a high of $7,480,000. Half took 43 days or longer to reach escrow and the group closed at 94.1% of the asking price, so most transactions here ended in a negotiated number. Eight homes stood active.

Mostly, but not entirely. Of the 23 closings, 17 were detached single family homes, four were condominiums, one was a townhome and one a triplex. The mesa was subdivided over ninety-three years across sixteen recorded maps, from 1907 to 2000, and that long build-out is why a block of pre-war houses can sit two streets from a 1970s condominium or a small income property. Which of those a comparable describes matters more here than in a tract laid out in a single decade.

One chain, entirely inside or beside the neighborhood. Newport Heights Elementary, a TK-6 campus of 507 students at 300 East 15th Street, posted 78% meeting or exceeding standard in English and 70% in math on the 2024-25 CAASPP, against district figures of 61% and 50%. Grades 7 and 8 attend Ensign Intermediate at 2000 Cliff Drive, 878 students, which also carries the district's Spanish dual immersion continuation. Newport Harbor High on Irvine Avenue finishes the chain with 2,044 students and a 96.8% four-year cohort graduation rate. The district's own boundary polygons assign the elementary's entire attendance area to Ensign and then to Newport Harbor, and Ensign's boundary is identical to Newport Harbor's.

Mariners' Mile, which the city's General Plan defines as the stretch of Coast Highway from the Arches Bridge to Dover Drive. It is developed with highway-oriented retail and marine commercial uses, with boat sales and storage, sailing schools, marinas and visitor-serving restaurants concentrated on the bay-fronting properties, plus the Balboa Bay Club and Resort on city tidelands. The city's adopted vision places a pedestrian-friendly retail district on the northern side of the highway around Tustin Avenue, Riverside Avenue and Avon Street, which are the streets that climb directly into Newport Heights.

Three, all named in the city's Coastal Land Use Plan for their bluff-top access and their views of the Lower Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Cliff Drive Park covers 4.22 acres on the city's published park attribute and is reached from Cliff Drive, as is Ensign Park beside it. Kings Road Park is 0.4 acres, reached from Kings Road at the western end. Inland, Bolsa Park adds 0.19 acres, and Westcliff Park at 3.01 acres sits inside the same Dover - Westcliff - Newport Heights community association area.