A Housing Market Telling Two Completely Different Stories
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San Diego's housing market has split into two distinct narratives depending on property type. Single-family homes are holding firm: the countywide median sits between $1,074,000 and $1,085,000, up roughly five to six percent year-over-year, with properties moving in a median of 33 days. That is not a buyer's market by any reasonable measure. Condos and townhomes are telling a different story — particularly older units, which are down ten to fifteen percent from their 2022 peaks. The driver is structural: HOA fees have surged 60 to 70 percent in some buildings, and special assessments have reached as high as $100,000 per unit in certain cases.
That special assessment figure represents something more disruptive than a market fluctuation. A $100,000 assessment on a unit that may have cost $450,000 to purchase fundamentally alters the financial calculation buyers made at closing — and it is being driven largely by deferred maintenance catching up with buildings constructed under less stringent HOA reserve requirements. The problem is not unique to San Diego and is expected to intensify across California.
On the commercial side, industrial real estate — San Diego's strongest sector for three consecutive years — is showing early signs of softening. Vacancy reached 7.06 percent in Q2 2026, up from 6.91 percent the prior quarter, and net absorption turned negative at minus 236,000 square feet, a reversal from positive 1.1 million square feet the quarter before. Third-quarter numbers, when they arrive, will indicate whether this represents a temporary fluctuation or the beginning of a broader shift in the commercial portfolio picture.