As we head toward the end of 2025, I wanted to share a quick, data-driven look at how the San Diego housing market from January through November 2025 compares with the same period in 2024.
Even with shifting interest rates and headlines, one thing hasn’t changed: San Diego remains a high-demand, low-inventory market. But under the surface, there are some notable differences between this year and last.
Resale vs. New-Build: Who Really Drove the Market?
Resale (existing) homes continue to dominate.
Across San Diego County, the vast majority of closings in both 2024 and 2025 were resale homes, not new construction. National and regional research shows that in expensive coastal metros like San Diego, newly built homes make up only about 2-3% of total home sales, among the lowest shares in the country.
Put differently: in a typical month with around 2,000+ closed sales, only a few dozen of those are brand-new homes; well over 95% are resales.
How many resale homes actually sold?:
- Example snapshot: (According to Redfin)
- October 2024: about 2,078 homes sold in San Diego County.
- October 2025: about 2,205 homes sold, a modest increase versus the prior year despite higher rates.
- Over the first eleven months of 2025, total resale closings are still running below 2024’s pace overall, but we’re seeing pockets of improvement in specific months like March and October where closings ticked up year-over-year or stabilized.
- New-build homes sold (Jan-Nov 2024 vs. 2025):
Because San Diego is largely built-out, true new-build closings remain a small sliver of the market. According to a recent article by Construction Coverage new construction’s share around 2% of total sales here; even as national new-home sales picked up in 2025, San Diego stayed a “resale-heavy” market.
Median Home Prices: High Plateau, Gentle Softening
Despite talk of “crashes,” San Diego has mostly seen a high plateau with slight cooling rather than a major price reset.
2024 – Jan through Nov:
- Detached homes (single-family) in San Diego were consistently above $1M for most of 2024. For example:
- May 2024: detached median price was around $1.02M.
- November 2024: detached median near $1.03M; attached homes (condos/townhomes) around $675K-$675K+.
- County-wide, all-property median price in November 2024 sat around the high-$800Ks (roughly $887K).
2025 – Jan through (at least) Oct/Nov:
- By March 2025, the countywide median reached about $906K, up roughly 3-4% year-over-year from March 2024—prices were still drifting up even as sales volumes were down.
- Fast-forward to October 2025:
- Redfin and local MLS data show the all-property median around $885K-$889K, down about 1-2%.
- Detached median remained just above $1.02M.
Big picture on prices (Jan-Nov 2024 vs. 2025):
- 2024: Steady appreciation, with detached medians over $1M and countywide medians in the upper-$800Ks to low-$900Ks.
- 2025: Prices flattened and then softened slightly, especially in the second half of the year, even while almost half of active listings still sit above $1M.
For buyers, that means a bit more negotiating room. For sellers, it means pricing with the market, not above it, is critical.
30-Year Mortgage Rates: The Headline Story
While we all feel rates daily, here’s how 30-year fixed mortgage rates actually behaved in 2024 vs. 2025 (national Freddie Mac data).
2024 (Jan-Nov)
- General range: mostly high-6s to around 7%, with an average for the year right around 7%.
- Lowest point (approx.):
- In late September 2024, Freddie Mac reported the 30-year fixed dipping to around 6.1%, with the monthly average in September at about 6.18%—a local low for 2024.
- Highest point (Jan-Nov window):
- Through much of the year, rates flirted with the upper-6s to around 7%, particularly over the summer and into October/November before settling near 6.8-6.9% in late November 2024.
So for 2024, the story was “roughly 6.1% at the low, pushing toward 7% at the high,” mostly living in the mid- to high-6s.
2025 (Jan-Nov)
- Highest point (Jan-Nov 2025):
- Mid-January 2025 saw the 30-year fixed spike to about 7.04%, the highest level since mid-2024.
- Lowest point (Jan-Nov 2025):
- By late October 2025, the 30-year had eased down to roughly 6.17-6.19%, the lowest since early October 2024 and effectively the low for 2025 so far.
Overall feel:
- 2025 has been an oscillation between low-6s and low-7s, but the more recent trend (fall 2025) is downward, with December now printing the lowest rates in about 14 months.
For clients, the narrative is simple:
- 2024: “Rates near 7%, occasionally dipping toward the low-6s.”
- 2025: “Rates briefly above 7% early in the year, but drifting down into the mid-6s by fall.”
What This Means for You and Your Clients
For Sellers:
- Fewer people are moving: Only about 1.6% of San Diego homes changed hands in the first nine months of 2025, one of the lowest turnover rates in the country and very similar to 2024.
- That “lock-in effect” means less competition from other sellers, but it also means buyers are price-sensitive. Homes that are clean, well-presented, and realistically priced are still selling.
For Buyers:
- Compared with 2024, you’re seeing slightly softer prices and slightly better rates, particularly in late 2025.
- New construction is a niche option here; most opportunities are in resale homes, where negotiation on price, credits, or repairs is more common than during the 2021 frenzy.
For Our Agents & Partners:
- The story you can confidently tell clients:
- “San Diego hasn’t crashed; it’s normalizing.”
- “Resale dominates; new-build is a small but important slice.”
- “Rates are still elevated historically, but they’ve improved from their peaks and are trending lower into 2026.”
At Oakwood Escrow, our role is to help you and your clients navigate these numbers calmly, so they can make smart, confident decisions regardless of the cycle.
If you haven’t already, now is the perfect time to connect with your Oakwood Escrow Officer or Sales Representative to goal-set for 2026, making sure your escrow team is fully in place and ready to support you in reaching your listing, buying, and closing goals in the year ahead.