$250,000 salary not enough to afford median home in San Diego

Like much of America, San Diego is feeling the budget crunch from inflation, tariffs and a more-robust-than-most housing market. As expensive as groceries are, locals have struggled more for years being able to afford a home in the county of 3 million and change.

Just how expensive is it, though, to realize the American Dream here? According to Realtor.com's April 2025 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report, a median home in the greater San Diego area — which includes Chula Vista to the south and Carlsbad to the north — will run a prospective homeowner $979,500, requiring a household income of $258,926 to make the nut.

That's a drop of 6.7% year over year in the price (an increase of 39.5% since April 2019, however), but a spike of more than 73% in the amount of annual income required to afford it.

Not surprisingly, the most expensive homes in the 50 largest metro areas are in peak Bay Areas (San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara), where a median home goes for about $1.4 million and homeowners need to generate around $370,000 a year to pay for it.

The biggest increase in year-over-year median home prices this year, though, may not be intuitive Baltimore/Columbia/Towson, in Maryland, posted 11.5% gains in that time period, as did the Providence/Warwick, Rhode Island, region. Cincinnati was the biggest loser, where median home prices dipped 7.3% in just a year. In fact, according to Realtor.com, prices were "flat or falling in most areas."

It's taking longer to sell a home, according to the site: "In April, the typical home spent 50 days on the market, which is four days longer than the same time last year. This marks the 13th straight month of homes taking longer to sell on a year-over-year basis. Still, homes are moving more quickly than they did before the pandemic, spending five fewer days on the market than the April 2017–19 average."

All 50 of the metro areas showed year-over-year inventory growth, according to Realtor.com's report, but San Diego saw the sharpest increase, with a spike of 70.1%.