Everything else equal, we can all agree that living in a cheaper place is better than living in a more expensive place.
I’d much rather pay $500/mo in rent than $1,000. And I’d rather pay $2 for coffee than $5.
And while every neighborhood in Santa Ana might be more expensive than living in rural California, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Santa Ana neighborhoods where your dollar goes a little further — you can get that one bedroom instead of the studio?
Instead of relying on public opinion and speculation, we wanted to get the facts straight and determine which neighborhoods in Santa Ana are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
115 cost of living index
145 cost of living index
141 cost of living index
144 cost of living index
134 cost of living index
159 cost of living index
160 cost of living index
161 cost of living index
133 cost of living index
162 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is California’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Santa Ana hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Santa Ana, we had to determine what criteria define “cheap” and then apply Saturday Night Science.
Using Census and extrapolated BLS data, we arrived at the following set of criteria:
- Overall Cost Of Living
- Rent To Income Ratio
- Median Home Value To Income Ratio
We then ranked each neighborhood with scores from 1 to 55 in each category, where 1 was the cheapest.
Next, we averaged the rankings for each neighborhood to create a cheap neighborhood index.
And finally, we crowned the neighborhood with the lowest cheapest neighborhood index, the “Cheapest City Neighborhood In Santa Ana.” We’re lookin’ at you, Mar-Les.
We updated this article for 2026. Skip to the end to see the list of all the neighborhoods in the city, from cheapest to most expensive.
The full plate
Detailed list of the cheapest neighborhoods to live in Santa Ana for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mar-Les | 115 |
| 2 | Delhi | 145 |
| 3 | South Coast | 141 |
| 4 | Fairbridge Square | 144 |
| 5 | Flower Park | 134 |
| 6 | Sunwood Central | 159 |
| 7 | Windsor Village | 160 |
| 7 | Republic Homes | 161 |
| 9 | Mid-City | 133 |
| 9 | Fisher Park | 162 |
| 9 | Memorial Park | 153 |
| 12 | Wilshire Square | 158 |
| 13 | Valley Adams | 147 |
| 14 | Bella Vista | 145 |
| 15 | Laurelhurst | 166 |
| 16 | Concord | 166 |
| 17 | Santa Anita | 138 |
| 17 | Lyon Street | 129 |
| 19 | Central City | 151 |
| 20 | Artesia Pilar | 149 |
| 21 | Thornton Park | 162 |
| 22 | Sandpointe | 171 |
| 22 | Bristol-Warner | 161 |
| 22 | Pico-Lowell | 142 |
| 25 | Portola Park | 163 |
| 26 | Centennial Park | 152 |
| 27 | West Grove Valley | 165 |
| 28 | Madison Park | 154 |
| 29 | West Floral Park | 164 |
| 30 | New Horizons | 147 |
| 31 | Edna Park | 168 |
| 32 | Eastside | 146 |
| 33 | Shadow Run | 137 |
| 34 | Riverview West | 150 |
| 35 | Heninger Park | 143 |
| 35 | Saddleback View | 155 |
| 37 | Mabury Park | 154 |
| 38 | French Court | 136 |
| 39 | Morning Sunwood | 161 |
| 40 | French Park | 139 |
| 41 | Logan | 145 |
| 42 | Santa Ana Triangle | 152 |
| 43 | Cedar Evergreen | 137 |
| 44 | Lacy | 147 |
| 45 | Meredith Parkwood | 162 |
| 46 | Grand Sunrise | 158 |
| 47 | Park Santiago | 167 |
| 48 | Riverview | 167 |
| 49 | Cornerstone Village | 152 |
| 50 | Bristol Memory | 150 |
| 50 | Morrison-Eldridge Par | 150 |
| 52 | Washington Square | 165 |
| 53 | Floral Park | 188 |
| 54 | Riverglen | 189 |
| 55 | Northwest | 169 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 55 Santa Ana neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Santa Ana
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Santa Ana where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Santa Ana are Mar-Les, Delhi, South Coast, Fairbridge Square, Flower Park, Sunwood Central, Windsor Village, Republic Homes, Mid-City, and Fisher Park.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Santa Ana aren’t all cheap. Northwest takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Santa Ana.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on California? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Santa Ana FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Santa Ana?
Mar-Les is the cheapest neighborhood in Santa Ana for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Delhi and South Coast are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Santa Ana?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Santa Ana are Mar-Les, Delhi, South Coast, Fairbridge Square, Flower Park, Sunwood Central, Windsor Village, Republic Homes, Mid-City, and Fisher Park. We ranked all 55 neighborhoods in the city.
How do you decide which neighborhoods are cheapest?
Three measures: an overall cost of living index, rent-to-income, and home-value-to-income, all from Census tract data. Scoring costs against local incomes keeps one luxury tower from skewing the math.
Is a cheap neighborhood a bad neighborhood?
Not necessarily — this ranking measures what things cost relative to income, nothing else. Check our safest neighborhoods in Santa Ana ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Santa Ana?
Northwest lands at the expensive end of the 55 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
