Tanager Park is a tract of 328 detached single family homes in the Mesa Verde section of Costa Mesa, zip 92626, off Adams Avenue and laid out across bird named streets: Tanager, Cardinal, Hummingbird, Oriole, Starbird, Wren, Swan, Sandpiper, Flamingo, Kinglet, Phalarope, Skylark, Bunting, Redwing and Pelican among them. Locals call it the Birds. The tract takes its name from Tanager Park itself, the neighborhood park on Hummingbird Drive. Mesa Verde Country Club and Fairview Park are minutes away, the Santa Ana River trail runs down to the beach from the west edge of Mesa Verde, and South Coast Plaza and the 405 are a short drive north. The schools are the Mesa Verde schools in Newport-Mesa Unified.
One correction worth making up front, because it gets described the wrong way constantly. In the MLS, every home here sits in area C1, Mesa Verde. Not South Coast Metro, not the 73 corridor. If you are searching for homes here and filtering by the wrong Costa Mesa area, you will not see this inventory at all.
The homes that have traded here recently carry assessor years from 1961 to 1975. Recent sales range from about 2,029 to 3,803 square feet on lots of roughly 6,000 to 14,303 square feet, in four to seven bedroom layouts. These are large two-story family homes on real lots, which is the whole point of the tract and the reason it prices the way it does.
There is no homeowners association. HOA dues here are $0. No dues, no design review, no gate, no shared amenities. What you maintain is yours, and what you build is between you and the city.
Three buyers compete for the Birds. The first is the move-up family from Eastside or Westside Costa Mesa or Huntington Beach who has outgrown a three bedroom ranch and wants five bedrooms, a yard, a pool and a street where the kids can ride to the park, at a price that buys a far smaller house in Newport Heights or Dover Shores. They want the finished homes, and they are the buyers who close in four days. The second is the builder and the investor. Original condition homes and trust sales here carry a renovation spread wider than anywhere else I cover, and the people who do this for a living know it; they are the reason original homes get unsolicited cash offers and the reason seven addresses traded twice in two years. The third is the renovator-owner who wants the biggest lot in Costa Mesa and plans to add on, with no association telling them what color to paint it. They compete for the 10,000 square foot plus lots and the corner and cul-de-sac positions.
What separates Tanager Park from the rest of Mesa Verde, and from Halecrest a couple of miles east, is the size of the house on the lot. Halecrest is 1955 to 1963 single story ranch plans of roughly 1,177 to 1,902 square feet. Most of Mesa Verde is the same vintage at similar sizes on the standard 1960s lot. The Birds were built later, 1961 to 1975, as the large two-story family plans of their era, and they are the only concentration of 2,000 to 3,800 square foot homes on 6,000 to 14,000 square foot lots in this part of the city. The Mesa Verde buyer is buying a ranch and a golf course address. The Tanager Park buyer is buying square footage, bedrooms and dirt, and that is why the tract prices above the area around it.
Most of the communities I cover on this site carry monthly dues between $660 and $1,429, which covers insurance, grounds, security and a set of shared amenities. Tanager Park carries none of that, and the trade is exactly what you would expect.
You keep roughly $8,000 to $17,000 a year that would otherwise go to an association. You also keep the full cost of your own roof, your own landscaping and your own insurance, with no reserve fund standing behind you and no manager to call. For a buyer who wants a large lot, a yard, room to expand and no committee, that trade is obviously right. For a buyer who wants a pool they do not have to clean and a gate at the entrance, it obviously is not. Neither answer is wrong. Just know which one you are choosing.
Forty homes closed on the bird streets in the last twenty four months. That is a deep sample for one tract, and it lets me say things here with real confidence.
Closed prices ran from $1,550,000 to $3,495,000, with a median of $2,237,500.
Price per square foot ran from $534.85 to $1,379.99, with a median of $868.46. That spread, more than 2.5 times from bottom to top, is the widest of any neighborhood on this site, and it is not random. It is condition.
Days on market had a median of nine. Not nine weeks. Nine days. More than a quarter of the closed sales recorded zero to four days on market. A correctly priced home in Tanager Park does not sit.
The tail is real though. One home took 279 days and another 154. Both were larger homes asking near the top of the range. Fast is the rule here, but the rule applies to homes priced against the tract, not against the best sale in it.
Here is what fell out of the data when I pulled it, and I did not expect it to be this stark.
Seven addresses in Tanager Park traded more than once inside the same twenty four month window, and one of them traded three times. Same house, two sales, in two years. Six of the seven resold higher:
An eighth home, on Flamingo Drive, sold at $1,625,000 and came back on the market at $2,595,000. It is no longer listed, and the only Flamingo Drive home for sale today is a smaller one asking $1,565,000.
Read that carefully, because it cuts two ways.
The six that resold higher were taken from original or dated condition to what the move-up family in this tract wants: the kitchen opened to the family room and the yard, a primary suite that feels new, new windows and new systems, and nothing left for the buyer to do. The market here pays for that product because the buyer who can afford the top of this tract does not want to live through a renovation. The Sandpiper home that resold $20,000 lower is the counterexample. It was bought at $2,720,000, already near the top of the tract, which left no spread to earn, and the work done did not change the product enough for the market to pay more. The Birds reward a real renovation and do not reward lipstick.
If you are buying here, there is a meaningful chance the beautiful home you are touring was bought as a project within the last two years. That is not a reason to walk away. Plenty of renovations are excellent. It is a reason to pull the permit history from the City of Costa Mesa, ask specifically what was permitted and what was not, and put a sewer scope and an electrical panel evaluation in your inspection scope rather than relying on a general inspection. The purchase price the flipper paid is public record. Ask for it.
If you are selling here, and especially if you are selling an original condition home or a home coming out of a trust, understand what you are sitting on. Two of the seven repeat sales started as trust sales in original condition, and both resold within two years for roughly $700,000 to $1,075,000 more. That gap is the reason your phone rings with unsolicited cash offers. You are not obligated to hand that spread to someone else, and you should at minimum find out what the finished number looks like before you accept the fast one.
As of November 1, 2026, five homes are on the market on the bird streets:
One more is coming soon on Tern Circle at $2,599,000, and two are already in escrow: Tern Circle at $2,400,000 and Hummingbird Drive at $3,195,000.
Two of the five are on Cardinal. The one asking $1,999,900 has been out eighteen days; the one asking $2,700,000 has been out a hundred and seventeen. That is the clearest signal on the street right now, because $820 a foot is moving and $1,088 a foot is waiting. The Swan Circle listing shows nineteen agent days against ninety seven cumulative, so ask for the cumulative figure there before you read its time on market as short.
Does Tanager Park have an HOA?
No. HOA dues here are $0. There is no association, no dues, no design review and no gate.
Where exactly is Tanager Park?
In the Mesa Verde section of Costa Mesa, zip code 92626, off Adams Avenue. In the MLS it sits in area C1, Mesa Verde. The homes are on bird named streets including Tanager, Cardinal, Hummingbird, Oriole, Starbird, Wren, Swan, Sandpiper, Flamingo, Kinglet, Phalarope, Skylark, Bunting, Redwing and Pelican.
How many homes are in Tanager Park?
328 detached single family homes.
When were the homes built?
The homes that have traded recently carry assessor years from 1961 to 1975.
What do homes in Tanager Park cost?
Forty homes closed in the last two years between $1,550,000 and $3,495,000, with a median of $2,237,500. As of November 1, 2026, five homes are on the market between $1,565,000 and $2,895,000, with one more coming soon and two in escrow.
What is the price per square foot?
Closed sales ran from $534.85 to $1,379.99 per square foot, with a median of $868.46. That spread is almost entirely condition.
How fast do homes sell in Tanager Park?
The median was nine days. More than a quarter of the closed sales recorded four days or fewer. A small number of larger homes priced at the top of the range took 150 to 280 days.
How big are the homes and lots?
Recent sales ran from about 2,029 to 3,803 square feet of living space on lots of roughly 6,000 to 14,303 square feet.
How many bedrooms do the homes have?
Four to seven, with five bedrooms being the most common in recent sales.
Are homes in Tanager Park being flipped?
Yes, actively. Seven addresses traded twice inside the last twenty four months. Six resold higher, by $650,000 to $1,315,000, and one resold $20,000 lower. Pull the permit history and the prior sale price on anything that looks freshly renovated.
Is Tanager Park gated?
No. It is an open, established neighborhood of public streets with no association and no gate.
Is Tanager Park a good place to renovate or expand?
The market pays for good renovation here, with a per square foot spread from $535 to $1,380 on homes of similar vintage. With no HOA design review, your constraint is the city rather than a committee. Confirm setbacks and what you can add before you buy.
What should I do if I own an original condition home here?
Find out what the finished value is before you accept an unsolicited offer. Two of the repeat sales in the last two years started as trust sales in original condition and resold within two years for roughly $700,000 to $1,075,000 more.