San Diego , CA

Current Trends:

During this past month of April, the median rental price for a single family home in San Diego was $2,780 and median sale price for a single family home in the city was $622,300. There were approximately 3,838 homes listed for sale in the city at the end of April, compared with 3,838 in March. During the last month, homes sold within 34 days on the market and received 3 offers per sale on average.

City Housing Supply:

As of the end of 2017, the total count of existing housing units in the city was 541,140. Single family housing units make up the majority 53.21% of San Diego's housing units, 287,927 units total. Multifamily units make up 45 percent, or approximately 246,462. As of last year, the average housing density (people per household) was 2.68, compared with the state average of 2.97. At the end of the period, about 31,924 of housing units in the city were unoccupied, suggesting a vacancy rate of 0 percent.

Regulations & Outlook:

The City has not yet finalized updates to it's residential zoning code that fully comply with State Laws SB 1069 and AB 2299 which allow for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to be developed on most single family lots. More commonly referred to as “Granny Flats” and “In-Law Units”, in San Diego as many as 169,876 homes may now be eligible to add some form of second dwelling unit. These laws are intended by The State to boost opportunities for housing production in cities in an effort to address the growing housing deficits local communities face accross The State. Typically secondary units are constructed by homeowners in backyards, converted garages and basements of single family residences. These new regulations could now allow individual homeowners to play a significant role to increase housing production in San Diego over the coming years. Consider for example, if just one percent of eligible homeowners in San Diego built an ADU each year, it would contribute an additional 8,493 units to the city's housing stock over the next five years and create thousands of new local construction jobs.

Local News & Policy:

At this time, statewide standards will superseed any local residential zoning requirements for ADUs that are non-compliant with the state's minimum set of requirements. The current development standards for ADUs in San Diego, or any other CA city, can be found at the city zoning page link and search below. Recently More information on the latest local policies and requirements for ADUs will be available as they are passed. Check back each month for the latest changes in San Diego.

Get Involved:

For homeowners and local developers who are interested in getting involved in the ADU movement locally in San Diego, use Housable to get insights about the ADU housing development potential of specific properties. Housable provides zoning, permitting, estimation and design tools, many of them free of charge, to help homeowners at any step plan, permit and build their ADU projects. Use property design and calculation tools any time, get low cost insights about the ADU potetnial of your property and connect with local professionals who can help with the process when you're ready to get started. Stay up to date with the latest local trends in housing production and join the ADU movement to create more housing in San Diego, one garage, basement, or backyard at a time.

Household size influences the demand for the mix of multifamily and single-family homes, as well as the size of the units. Single-family detached houses account for the largest percent of all housing types within the City of San Diego. In 1970, single-family units composed 65 percent of all housing units. By 1991, single-family dwellings within the City had declined to 56.8 percent of the total housing stock. In 2000, single-family accounted for 56.4 percent of all housing units within the City In 2010, single family housing units were was accounted for 54.7 percent, while multifamily units comprised to 44 percent as shown in Table 11. The remaining 1.3 percent was mobile homes or other types of housing units. From 2000 to 2010, multifamily housing with 20 or more units (apartments, condominiums) grew by 24 percent.

Table 15 provides overpayment detail by income level, household type, and severity. Housholds spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs are generally considered to be overpaying or cost burdened. Severe overpaying occurs when households pay 50 percent or more of their gross income for housing. As Table 15 shows, a higher percentage of poorer households tend to overpay.

Show More