Sell Your Commercial Property Fast In Anaheim, CA

Who rents in Anaheim

Anaheim is a renter-majority city. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2020–2024 counts 344,521 residents and 106,317 occupied homes, of which 57,162, or 53.8%, are rented. Across Orange County, the renter share is 43.6%. Median household income in Anaheim is $95,227, about $21,000 below the county's $116,289.

Tourism is the reason. Disney says the Disneyland Resort employs 36,000 Anaheim-based cast members, which makes it the largest employer in Orange County. Add the hotels, restaurants and convention business that surround the resort district, and the city has a large workforce of hourly and shift workers. Many of them rent close to work, in the older apartment neighborhoods of central and West Anaheim.

The second anchor is the Platinum Triangle, the district around Angel Stadium and the Honda Center. It has become the city's main location for new apartments, and the third driver on our Anaheim page, the aerospace and manufacturing employers of north Orange County, adds industrial jobs within an easy commute of West Anaheim.

Rents and affordability

Median gross rent in Anaheim was $2,175 a month over 2020–2024, compared with $2,434 for Orange County. The gap reflects Anaheim's older stock and lower incomes rather than weak demand. Measured against the city's median household income, a year at the median rent equals about 27% of income, but that median includes homeowners. The burden figures below measure renter households directly, and they tell a harder story.

Affordability is the main constraint. In Anaheim, 58.2% of renter households pay 30% or more of income on rent and 31.8% pay half or more, per ACS table B25070. Both figures are higher than the county's 54.0% and 28.4%. When nearly a third of tenants already spend half their income on rent, owners have limited room to push renewals, and collections and turnover need close attention.

HUD's FY2026 Fair Market Rents for the Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine area are $2,682 for a studio, $2,746 for a one-bedroom, $3,236 for a two-bedroom, $4,393 for a three-bedroom and $5,246 for a four-bedroom. The one-bedroom figure alone is more than $500 above Anaheim's median gross rent, which shows how far older in-place leases can sit below what voucher holders and new tenants pay.

The apartment stock

Of Anaheim's 110,705 housing units, 40,444, or 36.5%, are in buildings of five or more units, according to ACS table B25024. That is well above the county share of 26.1%. The largest group is in buildings of 50 or more units, with 19,385 units, nearly half of the 5+ total. Smaller buildings make up the rest: 7,931 units in 5–9 unit buildings, 6,521 in 10–19 unit buildings and 6,607 in 20–49 unit buildings. Another 12,169 units, about 11.0% of the total, are in duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes.

Age is concentrated in two decades. The city's median year built is 1973. Units built in the 1960s and 1970s total 42,489, or 38.4% of the stock, and 65.1% of all units were built before 1980 (ACS table B25034). Our Anaheim page describes the core of the stock as 1960s and 1970s garden-style complexes in the flatter parts of the city, and the Census data matches. Those buildings are now 45 to 65 years old. Buyers will look at roofs, plumbing, carports and parking structures, and electrical capacity, and will price any deferred work into their offer.

That age profile is the backdrop for the four areas named on our page. West Anaheim and Downtown Anaheim sit in the older, flatter parts of the city, Anaheim Hills lies to the east in the foothills, and the Platinum Triangle, covered next, is where most new rental supply has gone.

New supply in the Platinum Triangle

Most of Anaheim's recent apartment construction has been concentrated in one district. The city's February 2026 development status report counts 5,954 residential units completed in the Platinum Triangle, 330 under construction and 3,028 more approved but not yet started. Completed communities include Stadium Lofts with 390 units, Katella Grand with 399, Platinum Vista with 386 and two phases of Gateway Apartment Homes with 747 between them. The same report lists a maximum of 24,785 permitted units in the district, so the planning capacity is far larger than what has been built. Completed, under-construction and approved units together come to 9,312, equal to about 8.4% of all housing units the Census counts in the city today. If the approved projects are built, the district's share of Anaheim's rental market will keep growing.

Citywide, units built in 2010 or later account for 9.2% of the stock, and 1.5% date from 2020 or later. For owners of older buildings elsewhere in the city, new Platinum Triangle projects compete mainly for higher-income renters. They also matter for rent rules: under the state law described below, units with a certificate of occupancy issued in the last 15 years are exempt from the statewide increase cap.

Property taxes in Orange County

Apartment buildings in Anaheim are assessed by the Orange County Assessor under Proposition 13. The Board of Equalization describes a base rate of 1% of assessed value plus voter-approved bond levies, with annual increases in assessed value capped at 2% until a change in ownership or new construction. Property is valued as of the January 1 lien date.

A sale resets the assessed value to the purchase price, and the BOE's Assessors' Handbook 401 also counts a transfer of more than 50% of an owning entity as a change in ownership. For a garden complex held for many years, the step-up from the seller's bill to the buyer's can be one of the largest items in the underwriting. The county may also charge a documentary transfer tax of $0.55 per $500 of value at recording.

Rent rules and tenant law

Anaheim has not adopted local rent control, so the state Tenant Protection Act sets the limit for most apartments: 5% plus regional CPI, or 10%, whichever is lower, over any 12 months, through January 1, 2030. It also requires just cause to end a tenancy after 12 months. Because Costa-Hawkins exempts units with a certificate of occupancy after February 1, 1995 from local rent control, as the statute provides, any future local ordinance could not reach the Platinum Triangle's newer buildings.

The Attorney General's summary notes that increases of 10% or less need 30 days' notice and larger ones need 90 days. Deposits are limited to one month's rent for most owners under Civil Code 1950.5, with itemized returns due within 21 days, and CCP 1161 sets a three-day nonpayment notice that excludes weekends and judicial holidays.

What this means if you own a building here

Anaheim offers a large renter base tied to tourism and hospitality, and a supply of older garden-style buildings that competes on price rather than amenities. The constraints are tenant affordability, a capped rate of rent growth, and the cost of aging systems. A buyer will underwrite trailing net operating income, a reassessed Orange County tax bill and a capital plan.

To estimate where your building might trade, try our apartment building value calculator, and if you plan to reinvest, the 1031 exchange calculator. Skyline Capital Investments buys 5+ unit buildings across Anaheim, including West Anaheim, Downtown Anaheim and Anaheim Hills. Our seller page explains how we review a deal.