Best Places to Live in San Diego for Young Professionals

What are the best neighborhoods in San Diego for young professionals?

Downtown San Diego

One of the top areas for young professionals to move to in San Diego is Downtown San Diego.

I have spent so much time here in Downtown, both helping people buy homes, but also working down here in a previous career. I was a construction manager and I built two different condos here, Sapphire Tower and Ariel Suites in a luxury apartment building. There are so many great condos down here. You’re right next to the waterfront, the San Diego bay, lots of great restaurants and great nightlife as well. There’s comedy clubs down here. It’s a great area to live in if you are a young professional.

There’s a lot of different districts of Downtown. We’ve got Little Italy, Cortez Hill, Columbia Core, Gaslamp District. Marina District, and East Village. And they all kind of have their different feel to it. Two that I’m going to focus in on for young professionals is Little Italy and the East Village. Little Italy:  I’ve spent a lot of time here. That’s where those two buildings are that I built as a big mix of high rise, mid rise and low rise buildings, so depending on what kind of feel you’re looking for. If you’re looking for that high rise feel versus a low rise, you can kind of have your options there. And there’s absolutely fantastic restaurants lining: Little India all up and down there and Ketner as well. It’s very quiet. There’s a farmer’s market here every single Saturday. It’s an absolutely fantastic place to live and to visit. And it’s a little bit quieter and calmer than other parts of Downtown.

The other part of Downtown is the East Village and that’s bordering Petco Park and then going East from Petco Park, which is where the Padres play. And there’s also a lot of concerts at Petco Park as well. This is definitely an area where a lot of young professionals will live in. The condos there tend to be slightly more affordable than Little Italy. It’s very, very walkable as well. So those are the two main areas in Downtown San Diego that I would recommend young professionals live in. I have other videos diving into all the different condos that are here and the restaurants, but these are the top areas in Downtown San Diego.

The median price for Downtown San Diego right now, again it’s mostly condos, you’re really not going to find single family homes here is right around $750,000. HOAs are going to be a bit high here. You’re pretty much going to be spending at least $500 a month on up to $800-$1,000 depending on where you end up and which condo.

Ocean Beach

Moving up the Coast a little bit, we move into Ocean Beach. Ocean Beach is a really fantastic community. A lot of young people love to live here. Depending on where you are, you might have ocean views on the kind of the hill on Point Loma, but on the ocean beach side, or if you’re down closer to the beach, then you’re not going to have views. We’re going to be very, very close to the beach. You can walk or bike ride over to the beach to surf. And they’re a fantastic surfing spots in ocean beach, specifically at Sunset Cliffs. I have a lot of great memories in Ocean Beach. My first date that I went on with my wife was in Ocean Beach at Hodad, which is a really well-known burger spot here in San Diego.

The median price for homes here is right around $1.2 million. And for condos, it’s a little over $800,000 at this time. The condos tend to be a little bit older here in Ocean Beach. And the homes are a bit older as well. They are very coastal so because of that heavy Marine layer and the salt water that we get, homes can take a lot of damage and abuse. They really have to be maintained a lot. When you’re buying, make sure that those homes are well-maintained or you might have a lot of costs in inspections and repairs to take care of. But Ocean Beach also has a really fantastic downtown area. That’s definitely where the nightlife is. 

Pacific Beach

This moving up the Coast again to Pacific Beach, this is also a similar price point. Right around $1.2 million for your average single family home and rising condos, a little over $800,000 as well.

Depending on where you are in Pacific Beach, you’re going to get a little bit different vibe. North Pacific Beach is definitely gonna be a lot of single family homes tends to be more families. A lot of young professionals tend to be an actual Pacific Beach, very flat area of Pacific Beach versus North PB as more on the hill of Mount Soledad. And this is where you’re going to be really close to the beach. So again, you can get down to the beach really quickly and get your surfing in. A lot of great restaurants there, right along the beach as well.

And then your main road along the beach is Mission Boulevard. And that’s where all the restaurants are as well. Pacific Beach is definitely a place where a lot of young professionals move to when they first come to San Diego. In fact, most people I know when they first moved to San Diego, ended up in Pacific Beach. Usually renting first, and then they’ve kind of moved out from there once they got to know San Diego. And the thing about Pacific Beach to keep in mind is there does tend to be a lot of traffic there. Once you get in there and you’re home, you’re probably just gonna want to stay in that neighborhood. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to get to the freeway, depending on how heavy the traffic is at the time of the day.

Mission Valley

Another great place for young professionals is Mission Valley. It has a lot more affordable condos. It’s pretty much all condos in Mission Valley, no real single family homes with the exception of Civita. And those are more townhomes essentially, although they can be individual single family homes just not really much of a backyard. But a lot of condos in Mission Valley.

You’re going to be able to find condos down here for on the very low end, about $400,000, $450,000 on up to about 600,000. Those are going to be older condos built mostly in the 1970s, maybe the 1980s. And then in Civita, this is a brand new development, it’s absolutely gorgeous and there’s a much wider mix of brand new condos in here with condos and the townhomes or single family homes that I mentioned, but the price points are going to be higher anywhere from about $800,000 on up to about a $1.8 million, depending on the type of home that you’re looking for.

The HOAs are going to be a lot better here in Mission Valley as well. The older condos, you’re going to be more in the $250-$350 range. In Civita, it’s going to be closer to the $400-$500 range as well. But Mission Valley is super, super central in San Diego. You can get to Downtown in just about 10 minutes and really anywhere in the city in about 10 to 15 minutes. If you’re looking to commute, then Mission Valley is a great place to be because you can be to your job very, very quickly. You can be at the beach in just 10 minutes as well. A really fantastic area and more affordable than Downtown or Ocean Beach or Pacific Beach.

Uptown 

And then the 5th area is the Uptown neighborhood of San Diego, which consists of North Park University Heights, Normal Heights, Kensington and Hillcrest. The median prices here for single family homes right now are right around $1.2 million for condos. There are about $650,000 so again, a little bit more affordable than Downtown or Ocean Beach or Pacific Beach. And a lot of really fantastic nightlife, really great restaurants, bars, coffee shops right here. And it’s super central to getting to Downtown San Diego or getting up to say Sorrento Valley where a lot of biotech is or University City. And I really love this Uptown area.

I actually lived here in North Park for 8 years, and then just south of there in South Park for about 4 years as well. I know these neighborhoods like the back of my hand, and a lot of young professionals live in these neighborhoods. It’s very, very walkable. They’re putting in a lot of bike lanes as well. You can bike all over that area, much more safely these days as well. They are trying to get rid of cars in these areas. They are taking out a lot of parking right now, a lot of the new apartments and condos going in don’t actually have parking in there. You are stuck to street parking, or you just don’t have a car. And commute via the public transportation system and the public transportation here in San Diego is not great.

Ideally, when you’re buying a home in one of these neighborhoods, you want to try to find parking that’s really important. Otherwise it might be difficult trying to find parking at night, but North Park, Normal Heights, University Heights, South Park, Kensington and Hillcrest. These are all really fantastic neighborhoods with fantastic nightlife and it’s super central. And a lot of people, including myself, absolutely have loved living there.

That’s an overview of best areas to live in San Diego. If you’re a young professional, I deep dive into each of these neighborhoods in different videos. This is just an overview.

Curtis Chism, Realtor
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