Homes, condos and land for sale and rent in Huntington Beach, CA

The Huntington Beach pier was built in 1904 and was originally a 1,000 foot-long timber structure. Huntington Beach was incorporated on February 17, 1909 during the tenure of its first mayor, Ed Manning. Its original developer was Huntington Beach Company (formerly the West Coast Land and Water Company), a real-estate development firm owned by Henry Huntington. The Huntington Beach Company is still a major land-owner in the city, and still owns most of the local mineral rights. The company is now wholly owned by the Chevron Corporation.
An interesting hiccup in the settlement of the district occurred when an encyclopedia company gave away free parcels of land, with the purchase of a whole set for $126, in the Huntington Beach area that it had acquired cheaply. The lucky buyers got more than they had bargained for when oil was discovered in the area, and enormous development of the oil reserves followed. Though many of the old reserves are depleted, and the price of land for housing has pushed many of the rigs off the landscape, oil pumps can still be found to dot the city.
Huntington Beach was primarily agricultural in its early years with crops such as celery and sugar beets. Holly Sugar was a major employer with a large processing plant in the city that was later converted to an oil refinery.
The city’s first high school, Huntington Beach High School, located on Main Street, was built in 1906. The school’s team, the Oilers, is named after the city’s original natural resource.
Meadowlark Airport, a small general aviation airport, existed in Huntington Beach from the 1940s until 1989.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 31.9 square miles (82.6 km2). 26.7 sq mi (69 km2) of it is land and 5.1 sq mi (13 km2) of it (16.10%) is water.
The entire city of Huntington Beach lies in area codes 657 and 714, except for small parts of Huntington Harbour (along with Sunset Beach, the community adjacent to Huntington Harbour), which is in the 562 Area Code.

Huntington Beach has a borderline semi-arid/Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification BSk/Csb). The climate is generally sunny, dry and cool, although evenings can be excessively damp. In the morning and evening, there are often strong breezes that can reach 15 mph (24 km/h). Ocean water temperatures average 55 °F (13 °C) to 65 °F (18 °C). In the summer, temperatures rarely exceed 85 °F (29 °C). In the winter, temperatures rarely fall below 40 °F (4 °C), even on clear nights. There are about 14 inches (360 mm) of rain, almost all in mid-winter. Frost occurs only rarely on the coldest winter nights. The area is annually affected by a marine layer caused by the cool air of the Pacific Ocean meeting the warm air over the land. This results in overcast and foggy conditions in May and June.

The 2010 United States Census reported that Huntington Beach had a population of 189,992. The population density was 5,959.1 people per square mile (2,300.8/km²). The racial makeup of Huntington Beach was 145,661 (76.7%) White, 1,813 (1.0%) African American, 992 (0.5%) Native American, 21,070 (11.1%) Asian, 635 (0.3%) Pacific Islander, 11,193 (5.9%) from other races, and 8,628 (4.5%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 32,411 persons (17.1%). Non-Hispanic Whites were 67.2% of the population in 2010, compared to 90.8% in 1970.

The Census reported that 189,102 people (99.5% of the population) lived in households, 487 (0.3%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 403 (0.2%) were institutionalized.
There were 74,285 households, out of which 21,922 (29.5%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 36,729 (49.4%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 7,685 (10.3%) had a female householder with no husband present, 3,804 (5.1%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 4,386 (5.9%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 504 (0.7%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 18,489 households (24.9%) were made up of individuals and 6,527 (8.8%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.55. There were 48,218 families (64.9% of all households); the average family size was 3.07.

The population was spread out with 39,128 people (20.6%) under the age of 18, 15,906 people (8.4%) aged 18 to 24, 54,024 people (28.4%) aged 25 to 44, 53,978 people (28.4%) aged 45 to 64, and 26,956 people (14.2%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.2 years. For every 100 females there were 98.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.6 males.
There were 78,003 housing units at an average density of 2,446.5 per square mile (944.6/km²), of which 44,914 (60.5%) were owner-occupied, and 29,371 (39.5%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.4%. 115,470 people (60.8% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 73,632 people (38.8%) lived in rental housing units.
During 2009–2013, Huntington Beach had a median household income of $81,389, with 8.9% of the population living below the federal poverty line.

Huntington Beach sits above a large natural fault structure containing oil. Although the oil is mostly depleted, extraction continues at a slow rate, and still provides significant local income. There are only two off-shore extraction facilities left, however, and the day is not far off when oil production in the city will cease and tourism will replace it as the primary revenue source for resident industry.
The city is discussing closing off Main Street to cars from PCH through the retail shopping and restaurant areas, making it a pedestrian zone only. Other shopping centers include Bella Terra, built on the former Huntington Center site, and Old World Village, a German-themed center.
Huntington Beach has an off-shore oil terminus for the tankers that support the Alaska Pipeline. The terminus pipes run inland to a refinery in Santa Fe Springs. Huntington Beach also has the Gothard-Talbert terminus for the Orange County portion of the pipeline running from the Chevron El Segundo refinery.
Several hotels have been constructed on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway (State Route 1) within view of the beach, just southeast of the pier.
Huntington Beach contains a small industrial district in its northwest corner, near the borders with Westminster and Seal Beach.
Huntington Beach contains a major installation of Boeing, formerly McDonnell-Douglas. A number of installations on the Boeing campus were originally constructed to service the Apollo Program, most notably the production of the S-IVB upper stage for the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets, and some nearby telephone poles are still marked “Apollo Dedicated Mission Control Line.”
Huntington Beach is also home to the headquarters of Cambro Manufacturing, an international foodservice equipment company, with two manufacturing facilities in the city.