It takes more than double the salary to buy a home in San Diego vs. renting
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Homebuyers in San Diego need to earn $135,000 more than renters to afford their monthly housing payments, according to a recent Redfin report.
Why it matters: A "triple whammy" of rising home prices, high mortgage rates, and a shortage of houses for sale is making it harder for renters to make the leap to ownership, per the report.
- And the gap has ballooned over the past few years.
By the numbers: In San Diego County, you need an annual income of around $241,200 to afford a midpriced home, a 4.3% year-over-year increase.
- That's more than double the $106,200 needed to afford a midpriced apartment, which dropped 5.7%.
- The median home sale price locally was $889,688 between December and February, while the median asking rent was $2,655.
The intrigue: As asking rents continue to drop, the San Diego City Council recently banned algorithmic price-fixing software, which has allegedly inflated them.
Zoom out: Nationally, homebuying costs are climbing faster than rents, which have softened due to an influx of newly built apartments hitting the market. That construction boom is happening in San Diego too.
- The median national home price rose 4.5% from a year earlier to around $423,900 in February, per Redfin, while the median monthly rent was up 0.2% to roughly $1,600.
The fine print: Redfin's analysis assumes a homebuyer or renter spends no more than 30% of their income on monthly payments.
The big picture: A separate Bankrate study finds that renting is cheaper than buying a home in all 50 of the largest U.S. metro areas.
- Cost differences are widest in the West and smallest in the Rust Belt.
What we're watching: President Trump's tariffs are expected to raise construction costs for new houses, another hurdle for aspiring homeowners managing tight finances.