Overview of Findings
Apartment List has released Santa Ana’s results from the third annual Apartment List Renter Satisfaction Survey. This survey, which drew on responses from over 45,000 renters, provides insight on what states and cities must do to meet the needs of 111 million American renters nationwide.
"Santa Ana renters expressed general dissatisfaction with the city overall," according to Apartment List. "Interestingly, ratings for Santa Ana vary widely across categories such as weather and affordability."
Key findings in Santa Ana include the following:
- Santa Ana renters gave their city a D overall.
- The highest-rated categories for Santa Ana were weather and quality of local schools, which both received B grades.
- The areas of concern to Santa Ana renters are affordability, commute time and jobs and career opportunities, which all received F grades.
- Santa Ana did relatively poorly compared to other cities in California, including San Diego (A-), San Francisco, CA (B+) and Los Angeles (C+).
- Santa Ana did relatively poorly compared to similar cities nationwide, including Austin, TX (A-), Seattle, WA (B+) and Denver, CO (B+).
- The top rated cities nationwide for renter satisfaction include Scottsdale, AZ, Irvine, CA, Boulder, CO and Ann Arbor, MI. The lowest rated cities include Tallahassee, FL, Stockton, CA, Dayton, OH, Detroit, MI and Newark, NJ.
Renters say:
- "Love the culture, restaurants and people. I hate the poor job opportunities and annual rent increases in a bad neighborhood." – Christie B.
- "I love living in the middle of everything. But the downside is that crime has increased and so have the number of homeless people." – Rio D.
- "The city is great because it’s centrally located and easy to commute, but I dislike the amount of crime." – Gissel C.
- "I love the weather, living close to the beach, and being able to go on walks or runs through the city or parks." – Kaylyn M.
For more information on the survey methodology and findings or to speak to one of our researchers, please contact our team at rentonomics@apartmentlist.com.
