What is it like to live in Normal Heights – San Diego, California

Are you wondering what it’s like to live in Normal Heights?  Read on or watch this video to find out everything there is to know about Normal Heights!

Location and Overview of Normal Heights

Normal Heights is located in the Uptown area of San Diego. This is the community that comprises the areas such as Normal Heights, University Heights, Kensington,North Park, South Park, Golden Hill, Hillcrest, Mission Hills. The Uptown area is located right near Balboa Park, the huge central park in San Diego. Directly south of Normal Heights is North Park, a very well-known community here in San Diego, and it is bordered by the 15 freeway on the east. 

The 805 freeway cuts through Normal Heights, and then really the western bound of Normal Heights is basicallyTexas Street your Normal Heights and University Heights kind of bleed into each other. To the south you have El Cajon Boulevard and that is essentially the southern border of Normal Heights. Then to the north you essentially have Mission Valley, which is a valley or a canyon running through the heart of San Diego and that creates the northern edge of Normal Heights.

The main streets through Normal Heights are Adams Avenue which is running east to west. Adams is on the most northern side of Normal Heights and then you have 30th Street cutting right through the middle of it and that’s running from Normal Heights through North Park, and down into South Park. And then on the most western edge, you have Texas Street that’s also a major artery through this area. 

Normal Heights is part of the zip code 92116. 92116 comprises three different communities and that is of course Normal Heights, University Heights, and Kensington. Now Normal Heights and University Heights are fairly similar to each other if you’re driving through these neighborhoods you’re really not going to know that you moved from one to the other. The big thing that would differentiate them is they both have big marquee signs. 

Normal Heights has a huge marquee sign on Adams Avenue and University Heights has a huge marquee sign on Park Boulevard. That’s really the main differentiator between them, because the homes do look pretty similar to each other. Now there are some similarities between Normal Heights in Kensington with the types of homes. Kensington tends to be a little bit more luxury. 

Now a lot of the homes are of the same age but the Kensington homes tend to be larger and on the more luxurious side.  As I mentioned, it’s next to North Park North Park was named the third most hipster town in America a few years ago. So Normal Heights kind of has a lot of that going on with it as well, so you might love that or you might hate it. It is certainly a gentrifying area. North Park was the first to gentrify in this area and Normal Heights is right behind it.

Walkable and Bikeable

Normal Heights is super walkable, bikeable, or you can take scooters as well. Now the reason for this is because it’s on a big mesa that’s overlooking Mission Valley. It’s very flat there are virtually no hills in Normal Heights at all. As you get into North Park there are a few hills so it’s super walkable especially as you get into the areas around Adams Avenue and 30th street. 

This is where all the shops are, so that’s super walkable. If you’re in a home that’s a little bit further away, it might be a bit of a walk. You could have a mile walk to get to a shop but if you’re close to Adams or close to 30th it’s just a short walk –  a block to five blocks and your right into the shopping, restaurants, and the bars. So super walkable or if you want to jump on a cruiser bike and shoot over to those then that’s a great option as well.

Restaurants, Breweries, Bars, Coffee Shops, Shopping

Now there are all kinds of restaurants, bars, and breweries in Normal Heights, which really creates the awesome, vibrant community that exists here. You’ve got some really great restaurants like Blind Lady Ale House. It also has a brewery attached to it called Automatic Brewing, and this place has the most fantastic pizza – napolitano style pizza. It also has incredible frites (belgian style french fries). They are incredible with great dips that they serve with them. It’s just a really cool atmosphere and the owners there have made an excellent job of creating a very family-friendly place, as well as a place that young singles and young couples like to come and hang out late at night as well.

Another great bar is Rabbit Hole it serves American style food it’s kind of a sports bar. It’s a really exciting, vibrant place to be. It’s right on Adams just like Blind Lady Ale House. It’s basically across from Blind Lady so you can walk from one to the other. You’ve also got some great Mexican food options like El Zarape. They have fantastic margaritas and you have a lot of Asian inspired restaurants – so Chinese, Thai, sushi, ramen. All those options are available right here in Normal Heights.

As I mentioned there’s some breweries as well. There’s Fall Brewing, Little Miss Brewing, Poor House Brewing, and Automatic Brewing, which is located in Blind Lady Ale house. I would say the top out of all those is probably going to be Fall Brewing. They have world class beers and they have a food truck outside so you have a food option all the time. They have indoor and outdoor seating you’re right in there with the fermenting tanks. It’s just a really cool experience and fantastic beer. 

Then just down from it you got Poor House Brewing as well. They’re more of a mom-and-pop style shop and the owners are super cool and friendly. I and know them personally and it’s definitely worth checking. They have excellent beer as well and a really fun environment. Then you’ve got Little Miss Brewing. They have a really cool theme going on with like a British, World War II style theme inside the brewery.

Another great bar is Polite Provisions. It’s definitely kind of a hipster style but it makes absolutely incredible craft cocktails. No food there, just cocktails, beer and wine. It’s owned by a local group called Consortium Holdings. They have a number of other locations with different names around town which are definitely worth checking out as well but Polite Provisions is an excellent place to check out if you’re looking for a great cocktail or a beer in Normal Heights.

Tere are also some really great coffee shops here in Normal Heights. You’ve got Dark Horse Coffee, which is kind of one of the original, real craft roaster style coffee places here in San Diego. They now have a few locations but this is their original spot in Normal Heights. There is also James Coffee Roasters, so another roastery with absolutely excellent coffee. It’s located over on 30th Street. Dark Horse is located on Adams. There is also Lestat’s, which is a true coffee shop, not a roastery but it’s best known for its music venue. They have late night music shows, comedy shows, that kind of thing, that run regularly. So it’s a coffee shop in the morning but music venue at night.

There also are some large convenience stores grocery stores – Vons, Rite Aid, really anything you’re looking for in terms of your groceries you’re definitely going to find in Normal Heights without having to drive outside of Normal Heights. There are also a lot of mom and pop grocery stores. 

It’s also just out outside of Mission Valley which has tons of shopping, restaurants (mostly chain style restaurants) and  pretty much anything you’re going to need is going to be right down in Mission Valley. There are several malls in Mission Valley – Mission Valley West and Fashion Valley, which is a high-end mall. 

Home Prices and Types of Homes in Normal Heights

Lets go over the types of homes that you’re going to find here in Normal Heights. First off the median price for this zip code 92116m, which includes University Heights, Normal Heights, and Kensington and is just over $1.2 million dollars. Now Kensington is going to drive that median price up a little bit. University Heights and Normal Heights are going to be on the little less expensive side compared to Kensington. 

However most of the homes you’re probably going to be looking for in the 2-3 bedroom on up, you’re pretty much going to be looking at about $1-$1.5 million.  2 bedroom homes right are actually starting to break the $1 million dollar mark and 3 bedroom homes are starting to push up into that 1.25 to 1.5 million range.

Normal Heights has definitely seen some rapid appreciation just like the rest of San Diego. It is a super desirable area and very competitive to get your offer accepted.  You’ll need a winning strategy to win that bid. Because these homes are on the older side, they will be on the smaller side generally speaking so they’re 2-bedroom homes those are going to be about 750 to 900 square feet. The 3-bedroom homes are going to be about anywhere from 900 square feet up to 1,500 square feet. You’re occasionally going to find some 4-bedroom homes and those will be more in the 1,200 to 1,800 square foot range. These homes will be pushing $2 million dollars. 

Most of these homes were built in the 1920’s and 1930’s – about a hundred years ago. Most of those homes are going to be Spanish-style or Craftsman-style homes. There are some homes that were built ore modern in the 1950s 1960s, so are some mid-century homes as well.

A tip about Normal Heights is that there are a lot of single family homes here, which is great, but there are some condos here as well. The median price for condos in this neighborhood is about $470,000, which is quite a bit less than the median price elsewhere in San Diego which is overall around $600,000. So certainly you can get kind of a discount on condos here.  so if that’s something you’re looking for and want to be right in the action in the city in the Uptown area, this could be a great option for you.

Things to look out for when buying a house in North Park

Now something to keep in mind with these homes, because they’re older you definitely want to do a home inspection on these types of homes.  There are things that can come up that you want to be aware of and it’s best to know going into it so you’re not surprised.  There are going to be a few different factors to consider here: 

Foundations

Number one is going to be foundations. Since these homes are 100 years, old the foundations are old and they’re going to be unreinforced. So what that means is they don’t have rebar running through the concrete. They may not have the post and piers strapped to the house for seismic code. You definitely want to have a home inspection done and then possibly a foundation inspection and be prepared to potentially spend some money fixing those foundations. Home inspections typically run between $400-$600 and should always be performed on a home no matter the age of the home. Foundation inspections range from about $700-$800 depending on if it has a crawl space or not. 

Now if the work is as simple as strapping the post and piers, that’s not too bad, It may cost a few thousand dollars. If it’s much more extensive, there’s actually damage that has occurred to the house because of settling, you could be in for $60,000-$100,000 to do repairs in these homes. When you’re looking at homes you want to make sure that either those repairs have already been done by one of the prior homeowners or that there are no major repairs needed. If there are major foundation issues be prepared to spend that order of magnitude of cost to fix the foundations.

Plumbing

The other thing that you’ll run across in these homes is cast iron piping. So these definitely corrode over time because they rust out. They also have old piping in the house as well. These are a couple of things that hopefully they’ve been replaced by a prior owner, but potentially they have not. You might have to be prepared to come up with a significant amount of money to replace these sewer and plumbing lines.  These can run anywhere from $8,000-$20,000  depending on how long the line is and what’s needed to do. You can oftentimes re-line the sewer line with an epoxy filler that coats the interior of the pipe which can be a cheaper option.  Since these older homes have older water pipes, sometimes they need to be replaced. You’ll want to replace those either with copper piping or with a PEX plastic piping.  

Electrical

The third thing is the electrical on these homes sometimeshave old knob and tube wiring. So if they have that, that’s definitely something you’re going to want to get upgraded soon to the traditional electrical panel with circuit breakers and modern 12 guage and 14 guage wiring. 

Roof

Also something to look for on these homes is going to be the roof  Sometimes it’s not readily apparent when you see it, but this will come up in a home inspection. Sometimes the roofs can be rather old – they’re not going to be 100 years old of course, we just want to check the age of the roof and make sure there’s still useful life. Potentially you may need to do some repairs on the roof. 

Now these are just things to look out for and sometimes these homes have been completely upgraded, but other times you’re going to need some of these repairs done.

Parking & Traffic in Normal Heights

You definitely want to make sure you have parking no matter what house you buy. Parking is difficult no matter if you have a condo or single family home, so you want to have off-street parking. Now the way that Normal Heights is laid out you do have Adams Avenue as kind of the main line through Normal Heights and then you also have El Cajon Boulevard. 

Those are two main corridors east to west through Normal Heights so the closer you are to the main thoroughfares you are gonna have more traffic near your house including foot traffic including strangers and people that you may not know walking by your home. It’s going to be much less busy the further you get away from either of those streets. Whether Especially as you get north of Adams Avenue, it gets a lot quieter. 

The furthest north you can get in Normal Heights on the canyon wall of Mission Valley. Now the streets in Normal Heights are laid out on grids, but once you hit the canyon wall it turns into more of s-curve type streets making it a little bit more windy roads. It’s much quieter because people that are driving there are really pretty much driving to go to their house. So you don’t have a whole lot of through traffic in those areas. 

Curtis Chism, Realtor
858-281-2568 | Mobile
mailto:info@sandiegohomes.io
Chism Team | DRE #02105113
brokered by eXp Realty | DRE #01878277