Living in Corona

Corona sits at the base of the Santa Ana Mountains along the Santa Ana River, where Riverside County meets Orange County: the 91 freeway through town is one of the defining commutes in Southern California, carrying Corona residents toward Anaheim and the coast every day. The city’s historic core is laid out around a circular boulevard, which is where its old nickname, the Circle City, comes from; the neighborhoods near it are some of the oldest in the region. Most of the growth since has moved south and east, into newer master-planned communities.

Housing here spans that whole range: older single-story homes near downtown, and newer two-story homes with more square footage in the newer tracts toward Dos Lagos and the hills. Corona prices above most of the rest of this list, closer to what you’d see in Temecula, and it draws buyers who want Orange County access without Orange County prices.

Corona fits buyers commuting toward Orange County or Los Angeles who want more home for the money, and are comfortable with the 91’s traffic as the trade-off. For a seller, the sheer range of housing stock here, from smaller older homes to large newer ones, means pricing needs to be specific to the actual neighborhood and vintage, not a citywide average.

The market right now

Corona’s median has drifted down slightly over the past year, in a market with real volume: several hundred closings every quarter, one of the busier markets in this whole area. Homes go under contract in about three and a half weeks. For a seller, that pace means a well-priced home still moves, but there’s enough inventory that an ambitious number won’t get chased. For a buyer, the volume here gives you real comparables to negotiate from, and a slight downward drift gives you a little room.

Corona is also home to Trilogy at Glen Ivy, a 55+ community built around its own golf course: see our guide to 55+ communities in the area.

Commuting from Corona to Orange County

The 91 is the defining commute for a lot of Corona buyers, and it backs up in both directions at peak hours. Corona has two real alternatives worth knowing about before settling on a neighborhood: the 91 Express Lanes, a paid option running alongside the free lanes that can meaningfully cut the worst of the delay, and Metrolink rail. Corona has two stations of its own, Corona-North Main and Corona-West, both on the 91/Perris Valley Line and Inland Empire-Orange County Line; Corona-North Main is the second-busiest station in the entire Metrolink system, with a 500-space parking lot. If commute time is a real factor in your decision, which neighborhood you land in relative to the 91 corridor and the nearest Metrolink stop matters as much as the home itself.