Adam Boehrer Pacific Sotheby's International Realty

Town vs Town

Laguna Beach vs Newport Beach: one is getting faster, the other is getting slower, and they just passed each other.

Laguna is coves and canyons. Newport is a harbor. They sit right next to each other and they could not be built more differently. This fall they are also moving in opposite directions. Here are both markets on the same October 2026 measures, and the differences that have nothing to do with price.

Latest available reading: October 1, 2026 snapshot, September 2026 closings.

The Short Version

Both are slow. Only one of them is slowing down.

Expected market time takes every home for sale and the current pace of new contracts and asks how many days it would take to sell all of it. It counts what is sitting, not just what sold, which is why I lead with it.

Laguna Beach · October 2026

  • 213

    Expected Market Time

    Days to sell the current supply, all residential, October 1. Was 297 a year ago.

  • 41%

    Listings with a Price Cut

    Share of active listings, all price points, October 1.

  • $3.10M

    Median Sale

    All residential, 26 September closings. A small count, so it tracks mix.

Newport Beach · October 2026

  • 197

    Expected Market Time

    Days to sell the current supply, all residential, October 1. Was 143 a year ago.

  • 38%

    Listings with a Price Cut

    Share of active listings, all price points, October 1.

  • $3.70M

    Median Sale

    All residential, 74 September closings. Excludes Corona del Mar and Newport Coast.

Source: Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report (October 1 snapshot, September 2026 closings), drawn from CRMLS. Corona del Mar and Newport Coast sit inside Newport Beach city limits but are tracked as separate MLS areas.

Side by Side

Same month, same measures.

Everything here is houses and condos together from the Pacific Sotheby's October 1 report, so the two towns are measured the same way. The single-family series from InfoSparks is further down, for Laguna only.

Measure Laguna Beach Newport Beach
Expected market time, Oct 1 213 days 197 days
Expected market time, a year earlier 297 days 143 days
Homes listed, Oct 1 149 236
Change in homes listed, year over year −28% −5%
Homes pending, Oct 1 21 36
Change in pendings, year over year 0% −31%
Listings with a price cut 41% 38%
Closings, September 26 74
Median sale, September $3.1M $3.7M
Median sale under $5M $2.9M $3.1M
Sale-to-list under $5M 95.0% 98.0%
Median days on market under $5M 59 46
Closings above $5M 5 18
Median sale above $5M $5.3M $8.0M
Sale-to-list above $5M 84.2% 97.2%
Home value growth, 10 years to August +92% +123%
Home value growth, 1 year to August +6.5% +10.7%

Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report, drawn from CRMLS: October 1 snapshot and September 2026 closings, all residential. Home value growth is the Zillow Home Value Index through August 2026 as reported there. Year-over-year listing and pending changes are the report's own comparisons. Days on market appears only in the closed-sale rows; it counts homes that sold, not the ones still listed.

The Crossover

A year ago Newport was twice as fast. Now it is barely ahead.

Last October, Newport Beach needed 143 days to clear its shelf. Laguna needed 297. That is not a close race.

This October it is 197 against 213.

They got there from opposite directions, and the direction is the whole story.

Laguna shed inventory. It has 149 homes listed against 208 a year ago, a 28 percent drop, with pendings flat at 21. Same buyers, fewer homes competing for them. That is a real improvement, just a quiet one.

Newport lost buyers. Its listings are only down 5 percent, to 236, but pendings fell 31 percent, from 52 to 36. Roughly the same shelf with fewer people under contract is what stretches a clock. Newport sellers have not flinched much yet: 38 percent of listings carry a cut, against 41 percent in Laguna.

Laguna got better by selling less. Newport got worse by buying less. Same coast, opposite problems.

The closing table tells a different story from the pipeline, though. Newport's homes under five million closed at 98.0 percent of list. Laguna's closed at 95.0. Above five million the gap is a canyon: Newport's eighteen sales at 97.2 percent, Laguna's five at 84.2. Five sales is a small sample and one deep discount moves it. It still says Laguna's top tier is where the negotiating is happening this fall.

Laguna Houses Only

Laguna's single-family market just crossed into buyer's territory, barely.

The MLS single-family series for Laguna Beach in September 2026 shows 6.3 months of supply. Over six reads as a buyer's market. A year ago it was 9.0, deep in buyer's territory, so the direction is toward sellers even if the level still favors you.

  • 138 single-family homes listed, against 181 a year ago
  • 21 closed in September, against 26 a year ago
  • 95.3% of last list price received, median
  • $3,725,000 median sale

About that median. It is up from $2,707,500 a year ago on 21 sales, which is a 37.6 percent jump that is almost entirely about which houses closed. Do not read it as appreciation. The Zillow index, which smooths mix out, has Laguna up 6.5 percent on the year.

The same single-family series is not in this month's pull for Newport Beach, so I am not putting a months-of-supply figure next to it. Expected market time above is the like-for-like comparison.

Source: California Regional MLS via InfoSparks (ShowingTime Plus), Laguna Beach single-family, September 2026.

The Long View

Newport has run harder for ten years.

Newport Beach values are up about 123 percent over ten years on the Zillow index. Laguna Beach is up about 92 percent, the softest figure on this stretch of coast. Over the last year Newport is up 10.7 percent and Laguna 6.5.

That is less a knock on Laguna than a function of where it started. It was already expensive a decade ago, and percentage growth is harder to come by from a high base.

One thing to check before you compare Newport numbers across websites. Corona del Mar and Newport Coast are inside the Newport Beach city limits, and the MLS tracks both as their own areas. Corona del Mar sat at 183 days of expected market time on October 1 with a $4.3M September median on 22 closings. Newport Coast sat at 223 days, with values up about 133 percent over ten years. A Newport figure that quietly folds them in is measuring something else.

Not on the Spreadsheet

A harbor town and a cove town are not the same purchase.

The water

Newport Beach is organized around its harbor: the Balboa Peninsula on the sand spit, the islands, the bayfront, the bluff above the bay. Whether a home is on the water, on an island or inland changes the buyer and the price completely. More on that on the Newport Beach market page.

Laguna's water is protected coastline. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife says the entire coastline and offshore areas of Laguna Beach were designated state marine protected areas in 2012: a no-take State Marine Reserve from Abalone Point to Goff Island, and a no-take State Marine Conservation Area from Goff Island south to Table Rock. Tide pools and coves, not slips.

The terrain

Laguna is canyons and hillside. That is the view, and it is also the homework. Bluebird Canyon slid in 2005, and it is not the only slope in town with a history. If a Laguna home sits on a hillside or a bluff, read what to check on landslide and bluff risk before you write the offer.

Newport's exposure is lower and wetter. On October 9, 2026, high tide on top of swell from Tropical Storm Rachel flooded streets on the Balboa Peninsula and the City declared a local emergency. On the peninsula the question to ask is flood, not slope.

Schools

Two separate districts. Laguna Beach is served by Laguna Beach Unified: Laguna Beach High, Thurston Middle, El Morro Elementary and Top of the World Elementary. Newport Beach is served by Newport-Mesa Unified, which covers Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Corona del Mar. Confirm the assigned schools for a specific address with the district.

Getting out of town

John Wayne Airport sits between Costa Mesa, Irvine and Newport Beach, per the airport. If you fly a lot, that is a real difference between the two towns.

Short-term rentals

Hard in both, for different reasons.

Laguna Beach allows new short-term rentals only in its commercial and downtown districts, capped at 300 units citywide, under rules the Coastal Commission certified in 2020. No new ones are allowed in R-1, R-2, R-3 or VC zones. Units that were legal before October 2020 keep the use with the land, but only if they are still operating, and the new owner has 14 days to file a new permit. More on the Laguna Beach short-term rental rules.

Newport Beach allows them outside R-1, with a cap of 1,550 permits citywide (1,475 in residential districts plus 75 in two mixed-use areas) and a waitlist for new ones. The difference that matters to a buyer: a valid Newport permit can transfer with the sale if the buyer files within 60 days of the title transfer, under NBMC 5.95.043. More on the Newport Beach short-term rental rules.

So Which One

Decide what you are buying. Then the town picks itself.

  • A boat, a dock, or a bayfront. Newport. That is what the city is built around.
  • A cove, tide pools, a canyon view. Laguna.
  • Room to negotiate at the top. Laguna above five million, where September's five sales closed at 84.2 percent of list.
  • A deep market you can price off. Newport. 74 closings in a month gives a seller and a buyer real comps to argue from. Laguna's 26 is thin.
  • A short-term rental. Newport, if the home already holds a valid permit and you file the transfer within 60 days. In Laguna it takes a commercial-district unit or a still-operating pre-2020 one.

Each town's monthly read is on its own page: Laguna Beach housing market and Newport Beach housing market. If you are weighing the south end of the county too, the same comparison for San Clemente vs Dana Point is here.

What I would tell you if you called. Laguna and Newport each hide a dozen markets inside one name. A cove cottage and a gated estate in Laguna, or an island home and an inland tract in Newport, have almost nothing in common but a zip code. Give me the streets and I will pull what has actually closed on them, and at what discount to ask.

All-residential figures, expected market time and price-cut shares are from the Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report (October 1 snapshot, September 2026 closings), drawn from CRMLS. Laguna Beach single-family figures are from the California Regional MLS via InfoSparks (ShowingTime Plus), September 2026. Ten-year and one-year growth are the Zillow Home Value Index through August 2026 as reported by Pacific Sotheby's. Single-month medians at these transaction counts track the mix of homes that closed as much as value. School district, marine protected area, airport, flooding and short-term rental details are from the agencies and outlets linked above, as of October 2026; rules change, so confirm with the city for a specific parcel. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. If your property is already listed for sale, nothing here is intended as a solicitation.

Questions people ask

Laguna Beach vs Newport Beach, answered.

Is Laguna Beach or Newport Beach better to buy in?

Neither is better in general; they are different markets. As of October 1, 2026, Laguna Beach would take 213 days to sell its current supply and Newport Beach 197, per the Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report. Laguna's clock is 84 days shorter than a year ago because inventory fell. Newport's is 54 days longer because new contracts fell. Newport closed 74 homes in September against Laguna's 26, and its homes under $5M sold at 98.0 percent of list against 95.0 percent in Laguna.

Is Laguna Beach more expensive than Newport Beach?

Not on September 2026 closings. Across houses and condos, the median sale was $3.1M in Laguna Beach on 26 closings and $3.7M in Newport Beach on 74, per the Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report. Under $5M the medians were $2.9M and $3.1M. Above $5M, Laguna's five sales had a $5.3M median and Newport's eighteen had $8.0M. Corona del Mar and Newport Coast are tracked as separate MLS areas and are not in the Newport Beach figures.

Is Laguna Beach a buyer's market?

On months of supply, Laguna Beach single-family homes sat at 6.3 months in September 2026, just over the six-month line that reads as a buyer's market, down from 9.0 a year earlier. Source: California Regional MLS via InfoSparks (ShowingTime Plus). Under three months is a seller's market and three to six is balanced.

What school districts serve Laguna Beach and Newport Beach?

Laguna Beach is served by Laguna Beach Unified School District, whose schools are Laguna Beach High, Thurston Middle, El Morro Elementary and Top of the World Elementary. Newport Beach is served by Newport-Mesa Unified School District, which covers Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Corona del Mar. Confirm the assigned schools for a specific address with the district.

Can you buy a short-term rental in Laguna Beach or Newport Beach?

It is hard in both, and the way in is buying a home that already has a permit. Laguna Beach allows new short-term rentals only in its commercial and downtown districts; units that were legal in residential zones before October 2020 keep the use only if they are still operating and the new owner files a new permit within 14 days. Newport Beach caps permits at 1,550 citywide, allows none in R-1, and lets a valid permit transfer to a buyer who files within 60 days of the title transfer. Check the specific parcel with the city before counting on rental income.

Two towns, one call

Deciding between Laguna and Newport?

Tell me what you want the house to do for you, roughly what you want to spend, and which streets you keep coming back to. I will pull the closings on those streets in both towns and tell you straight where I think the value is. Text or email is the easiest way in.

Phone 949.541.8247

Email [email protected]

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License Adam Boehrer, Real Estate Agent, DRE #02419464, Pacific Sotheby's International Realty

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