Overview
About Balboa Island
The city maps this community as three islands: Balboa Island, Little Balboa Island and Collins Island, joined to the mainland by a bridge and to the Balboa Peninsula by a ferry. On the city's own association layer the two residential islands hold 1,963 units, 1,664 on the main island and 299 on Little Balboa Island, and neither association is gated. The General Plan counts the island among the first neighborhoods developed in Newport Beach, laid out as a pedestrian-oriented grid with alleyways, and names it one of the city's five coastal retail villages.
Marine Avenue is the two-block retail district the city's coastal plan calls the island's town square, lined with small-scale, locally owned restaurants, shops, galleries and services, with residential permitted above the storefronts and freestanding residential not permitted on those frontages. The Newport Beach Museum keeps free admission daily at 210 B Marine Avenue, Balboa Island Park covers 0.28 acres on the city's park layer, and the ferry has run continuously since 1919 across roughly 800 feet of channel, 6:30 a.m. to midnight, 365 days a year. Newport-Mesa Unified assigns island addresses to Abraham Lincoln Elementary in Corona del Mar and then to the Corona del Mar campus, one school for grades 7 through 12.
View available homes in Balboa IslandHistory
How Balboa Island was built
Balboa Island is not an island in any natural sense. It was a mudflat ringed by swamp until 1902, when the developer W. S. Collins bought roughly 900 acres from James McFadden, including the wet ground that would later become Balboa, Lido and Harbor islands. From 1905 to 1913 Collins worked a dredge in the bay, cut the channels he needed and piled the sand and silt onto the flat until it stood above the tide. That is the island people live on today.
Selling it was harder than making it. Collins put lots on the market for as little as twenty five dollars, promising the improvements would follow, and it took an extravagant Fourth of July party in 1914 before he had moved seven hundred of them. The rest arrived slowly. Gas service reached the island in 1920. Getting across the water took even longer to settle: the city gave Collins the first ferry contract in 1910 and his boatman John Watts ran it, a resident named Joe Ferguson kept the boat going for four years after Collins left, and Joseph A. Beek took the contract in 1919. Only in 1922 could a car drive straight onto the boat rather than be pushed aboard a barge. The Beek family still runs it.
By the Numbers
Balboa Island by the numbers
Real Estate
Market snapshot
Real estate snapshot
26 closed sales · 01/01/26 – 08/17/26
| Median sale price | $5,000,000 |
| Median price per sq ft | $2231 |
| Median home size | 2,325 sq ft |
| Median days on market | 28 |
| Sale-to-list ratio | 96.8% |
| Price range | $2,900,000 – $9,400,000 |
| Year built | 1926 – 2025 |
Price range distribution
Share of closed sales by price band
Our Sales
Our recent sales in Balboa Island
No transaction of ours in this neighborhood yet. The section renders only real transactions.
Lifestyle
The Balboa Island lifestyle
Schools
Schools serving Balboa Island
Balboa Island sits in Newport-Mesa Unified. The district's own locator assigns island addresses to Abraham Lincoln Elementary in Corona del Mar, 369 students in grades TK through 6, and then to the Corona del Mar campus, one continuous school of 2,117 students serving grades 7 through 12, so this pipeline has no separate middle school. Confirm the assignment for a specific address at web.nmusd.us before it matters to an offer.
TK-6 · 369 students
7-12 · 2,117 students
FAQs
Common questions about Balboa Island
What does a home on Balboa Island sell for?
Twenty-six homes closed between January 1 and August 17 of 2026, at a median of $5,000,000, or $2,231 a square foot on a median size of 2,325 square feet. The lowest closing was $2,900,000 and the highest $9,400,000. Thirteen ran $5,000,000 or above and twelve landed between $3,000,000 and $5,000,000, so nearly the whole market cleared above $3,000,000. The group took a median of 28 days to reach escrow and closed at 96.8% of list price, and eleven homes stood active on the island on August 17.
Is there a homeowners association?
No mandatory master association governs the island. The city's community association layer covers it with two polygons, the Balboa Island Improvement Association at 1,664 residential units and the Little Balboa Island Property Owners Association at 299, both recorded as not gated. The improvement association is a nonprofit civic league classed by the Franchise Tax Board as such rather than a homeowners association, and its work runs to bulkhead repairs, utility upkeep, the flower beds at the bridge entrance and the island's annual events.
How does the ferry work?
The Balboa Island Ferry crosses roughly 800 feet between the island and the Balboa Peninsula and has run continuously since 1919, with ferry service on the crossing dating to 1906 in the city's coastal plan. It runs 6:30 a.m. to midnight, 365 days a year, carrying cars, bicycles and pedestrians, and the city counts three boats moving an average of a thousand people a day. A commuter booklet of 30 crossings costs $64.00, which the operator puts at 29% off the regular fare.
What is on Marine Avenue?
Marine Avenue runs two blocks and holds the island's entire retail district: restaurants, shops, art galleries and services, all small scale and locally owned, which the city's Coastal Land Use Plan describes as the island's town square. City coastal policy designates Marine and Agate Avenues as mixed use, so residential is permitted on upper floors but not as a freestanding use on those frontages. The Newport Beach Museum sits at 210 B Marine Avenue, open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with no general admission charge.
Which schools serve Balboa Island?
Newport-Mesa Unified's own locator assigns island addresses to Abraham Lincoln Elementary at 3101 Pacific View Drive in Corona del Mar, 369 students in grades TK through 6 on the 2025-26 state census, with 70% meeting or exceeding standard in English and 64% in math. Lincoln then feeds the Corona del Mar campus, a single school of 2,117 students covering grades 7 through 12, so there is no separate middle school in this pipeline. Assignment follows the address, so confirm a specific one with the district.