Irvine Ranked 4th Nicest City in US

IRVINE, CA—Irvine, CA, ranks fourth on RealtyTrac's list of the “Top 10 Nicest Cities” in the country. As a nod to the holidays, the firm rated cities as naughty or nice based on the number of sex offenders per capita, unemployment rates, foreclosures, school scores and crime ratings.

Irvine has .010% sex offenders per capita, holds an unemployment rate of 4.95%, has .39% of its housing units in the November foreclosure inventory, has an average elementary school score for 2013 of 1.03, has a total crime grade of A and a home-affordability percentage of 53.26%. For further clarification about the sex-offender percentage and school score, RealtyTrac tells GlobeSt.com, “For each section we had a national average and ranked based off above or below the national average. Now, to get the per capita number we took the number of sex offenders in that area and divided it by population. In regards to the school scores, school data is from every state's department of education. Test scores are based around the test average of each state.”

RealtyTrac reports that there were 55 cities were ranked as “nice,” with unemployment, sex offenders and foreclosure inventory below the national averages, an average school score above the national average and a crime rating of B or above. Twenty out of the 55 cities had a crime rating of A or above, and crime rates were one-third of the national average. School scores in these cities were nearly twice the national average, and the average unemployment rate for these cities was 4.6—well below the national average. There were 24 foreclosures per every 10,000 housing units, and there was an average of four sex offenders per 10,000 people.

RealtyTrac ranked 20 cities as “naughty,” where unemployment, sex offenders and foreclosure inventory were above the national averages, school ratings were below the national average and the crime rating was C or below. School scores were one-half the national average in these cities, and crime rates were nearly twice the national average. Also, these cities had an average 7.8% unemployment rate, 128 foreclosures per every 10,000 housing units and an average of 27 sex offenders per 10,000 people. Milwaukee topped the naughty list, while three other Western cities—all in California—were in the top 10: Stockton, Fresno and Sacramento.

For a slideshow of the top five nicest cities, click here. For a slideshow of the top five naughtiest cities, click here. For an interactive graph showing the naughty and nice housing markets in the country, click here. And for a naughty and nice infographic, click here.

As GlobeSt.com reported earlier this week, institutional investors have played a significant role in the residential real estate market recovery, buying up distressed single-family homes and either flipping and selling them or renting them out for profit. But the percentage of institutional investors in the single-family residential market has been dwindling recently, and with home prices rising significantly some institutional investors may feel it's time to cash out of the market, RealtyTrac reports.