The real estate market in San Diego was red hot in 2021.
The Federal Reserve has kept rates low, spurring a homebuying wave from 2020 through 2021. But what was once a tailwind can become a near-term headwind for America’s Finest City.
Home prices shot up, inventory dried up, and bidding wars have become the norm over the past two years.
As we enter 2022, buyers want to know what trends will drive the San Diego real estate market. That is why the team at Prevu Real Estate compiled a guide of the most important trends to watch for aspiring homeowners.
Sales prices will continue to rise
Buyers want to know what the San Diego housing market has in store for 2022.
Home prices grew over 27% from 2020 to 2021, the second-highest in the country, following Phoenix, Arizona. Homes sell quickly in San Diego as buyers from San Francisco and other parts of the state move south.
New buyers, coupled with low inventory, means sales will be competitive in the coming year. And while rising interest rates should curb the steep pricing hikes of 2021, demand will remain high.
Commission rebates will save buyers thousands
San Diego buyers face high demand, rising interest rates, and low housing stock in 2022.
But there is a way to save thousands at closing in the new year. Buyers can find financial savings by working with a buyer’s agent that provides commission rebates.
Most brokers split the commission fee with the listing agent. But brokerages like Prevu Real Estate provide a portion of that fee back to the buyer via their Smart Buyer Rebate Program.
While prices are not likely to fall in the new year, buyers who stand to receive cash back from their broker can make their home purchase more affordable.
Mortgage interest rates will rise
It is no secret that inventory is constrained in San Diego.
Before the wide availability of low-interest financing, San Diego homes cost a pretty penny. But after the Fed lowered interest rates, already expensive homes shot to astronomical values due to bidding wars empowered by the low cost of borrowing.
And even with the promise of windfall from a sale, many San Diego owners resisted selling in fear of not securing their next home amidst the competition.
The Fed is expected to raise rates in 2022 to curb rising inflation. The resulting increase in mortgage rates will increase borrowing costs for some homebuyers and slow the pace of home price increases witnessed in recent years.
As a result, a greater sense of normalcy may return with less competition, and some experts anticipate an improvement in inventory as previously hesitant sellers list their homes.
But even with new listings, demand will continue to remain high in the city.
Demand to remain high
Buyers fall in love with the great weather and surfside city living on the sun-kissed streets of San Diego.
But as many offices create hybrid or complete work from home plans, buyers from all over the state flock to the region to make a home.
This mad dash of buyers contributed to the high demand and consequent high prices characterizing the market in 2021. This demand contributed to San Diego seeing the second-highest price growth in the nation.
But demand is not likely to scale back any time soon. San Diego homes provide access to downtown and the beach, all at an affordable price point, compared to the rest of the state.
Inventory will remain constrained
Several factors contribute to the constrained inventory in San Diego. Even if holdout sellers list their properties en masse, there is still an issue with housing demand outpacing new construction.
The shared border with Mexico means the city can’t expand south, and the Pacific Ocean blocks development to the west. Plus, vast nature preserves surround the north and eastern boundaries of the city. But even when there is land to develop, issues arise.
First-time buyers have trouble finding starter homes, and many local administrations push back against high-density developments. Even building starter homes is difficult for developers, who have to get multiple permits before building.
The lack of new construction and resale homes means buyers will continue to face tight inventory in the coming year.
Prevu Real Estate, Inc. is a licensed real estate broker in California, license number 02134758.
5 trends to watch for San Diego homebuyers
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
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SEPTEMBER 1, 2026
The Best Gym in San Diego Isn’t Really a Gym Anymore
Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped "athletic" from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
There’s a version of San Diego that lives in two extremes. On one side, the 5 a.m. crowd: biohackers, marathoners, people who’ve already logged a cold plunge before your alarm goes off. On the other, the after-dark crowd, the ones chasing sunset happy hours and late dinners with friends. Everyone seems to be either optimizing or unwinding, and most of us feel like we’re failing at both.
Fit, San Diego’s reigning Best Gym for the third year running, has built its entire identity around erasing that divide.
Walk into one of Fit’s three San Diego locations on a Tuesday afternoon and the lines blur fast. Someone’s mid-set on the squat rack. Someone else has a laptop open at a café table a few feet away, half-working, half-people-watching. A group is trading plans for the weekend’s event by the recovery lounge. Nobody’s in a rush to leave.
“We’re not competing for the same people,” says Emily Waybright, Public Relations Manager at Fit, addressing the arrival of a national luxury gym chain in San Diego this year. “We don’t really feel like we’re in the gym category. It’s this unique thing.”
That unique thing has a name now. Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped “athletic” from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
It’s a small wording change with a bigger idea behind it. Fit was never built around escaping the workday. It was built around the people who genuinely like what they do, and who want workouts, work, and friendships to happen in the same place instead of three separate ones. Because sometimes red light therapy with a stranger turns into weekend plans.
Fit’s philosophy traces back to its founder, who started the brand nearly two decades ago after failing to find a gym he actually wanted to belong to. He looked instead to the old-school country club, where people came for a shared interest and stayed for the community. His version was made for a younger generation, minus the golf, plus the loud music.
Which makes it a little ironic that the very award putting Fit back in the spotlight this year is Best Gym.
What does the best traditional gym look like when the definition of a gym is becoming less traditional? It’s a fair question, and Fit’s answer is that the fitness industry itself is shifting. The 45-minutes-in, 45-minutes-out model is giving way to something closer to a genuine third space, the kind of role the office and the bar used to play before remote work and changing nightlife habits rearranged how people spend their time
For Fit, community isn’t a marketing add-on to fitness. It’s the through-line. Members aren’t just paying for a treadmill; they’re paying for an entire day of social wellness that’s built on performance, recovery, connection, and a plan for the next event on the calendar. That’s a much harder membership to walk away from.
Ambition and ease aren’t opposites here, they exist side by side, where passion and play share the same morning. On September 12, Fit is hosting Sol, a full day wellness festival at Fit Social. The morning focuses on wellness classes and vendors and then the evening is a full party with multiple DJ sets and an open bar. Think of it as a kick-off to locals’ summer in San Diego.
Ready to see what a social wellness club actually looks like? Visit fitclubs.com, or follow along at @thefitclubs on Instagram.
Growing up, Laika Nur, MD, Scripps Clinic sports medicine specialist, loved watching beach volleyball when the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour came to her hometown of Chicago. A talented volleyball player herself, she remembers sitting in the stands all day, and once, even got a couple autographs. Years later, Dr. Nur was attending a professional event focused on women’s sports, and the discussion turned to a new professional women’s volleyball league. The general manager and coaching staff for San Diego’s team, the Mojo, happened to be in attendance, and Dr. Nur took the opportunity to ask them if they needed a team doctor. Flash forward to the Mojo’s inaugural 2024 season, when Dr. Nur officially became the team physician. Click here to read more about Dr. Nur and how she incorporates lessons she learned on the court into her practice.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
Your feet and ankles probably aren’t something you give much thought to—until something goes wrong. Orthopedic surgeons at Scripps Clinic are on the leading edge of foot and ankle reconstruction, treating patients with sports injuries, deformities, traumatic injuries and other conditions. That includes repairing torn Achilles tendons with a minimally invasive procedure that shrinks the incision site to less than a centimeter, and performing advanced ankle replacement on some patients with ankle arthritis. Read more about Scripps’ innovations in foot and ankle care here.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
Mai Vue was just 34 weeks pregnant when she delivered her baby. Her pregnancy had been complicated, and she’d had a recent second trimester pregnancy loss, which led to her receiving specialized care from Sean Daneshmand, MD, a Scripps Clinic perinatologist who oversees high-risk pregnancies. Dr. Daneshmand and his team took care of Mai during her pregnancy, through the birth of her healthy baby girl and beyond. Mai was part of a program Scripps launched to provide support to new moms in the weeks and months after delivery. The postpartum program, known as Scripps Health’s Fourth Trimester Continuum of Care, provides care for women with high-risk pregnancies to optimize their health after childbirth and reduce the risk of complications in future pregnancies. Click here to learn more.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
It’s estimated that one in five people in the U.S. will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives. When you factor in living in a sun-soaked city like San Diego and the outdoorsy lifestyle that comes with it, that figure can jump to as high as one in three, which makes early detection and intervention all the more important. Dermatologists at Bighorn Mohs and Dermatology Center are using innovative imaging methods and advanced surgical techniques to diagnose and treat skin cancer. For certain cancers in sensitive spots, like the face, dermatologists perform Mohs surgery, removing skin tissue layer by layer until reaching healthy, cancer-free tissue. They also use a process called immunohistochemistry to view tissue samples taken during Mohs surgery in far greater detail than previous methods. Read more about how Scripps is advancing skin cancer care here.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
When endurance athlete Isaac Sanchez learned he had cancer, he felt blindsided. He was healthy, surfed often and was training for an Ironman triathlon. But he had to put that on hold to undergo treatment. His physicians at Scripps Cancer Center developed a plan to treat the cancer in his tonsil and lymph nodes that included six-and-a-half weeks of near-daily radiation and weekly chemotherapy. He also worked with a Scripps Cancer Center dietitian to enhance his nutrition to promote strength and healing. Today, Isaac’s back to doing what he loves. Read more of his story here.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
