There are more millionaires in San Diego, at least on paper, than you might think.

In San Diego County, 35% of homes were valued at $1 million or more in 2023, said a new study from mortgage website LendingTree. That was up from 23% in 2022.

The San Diego metro area now ranks fourth in the nation for the most million-dollar homes, ahead of Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Miami and others. The metro with the most million-dollar-plus homes was San Jose at 71.6%. It was followed by San Francisco (56.6%) and Los Angeles and Orange counties (36.4%).

LendingTree used U.S. Census data to calculate home values, which is delayed by about a year. It used all owner-occupied housing, meaning it includes single-family homes, condos and townhouses. It said there were 224,035 homes in San Diego County valued at $1 million or more.

Jacob Channel, senior economist at LendingTree, said the study is different than many home price reports that look at recent sale or listing prices. It includes values of homes that, maybe, haven’t been on the market for 40 years.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it is tough in today’s housing market,” he said Tuesday. “Not only are home prices high, but so are interest rates.”

While the market is rough for homebuyers, it is good for current homeowners. Many real estate agents in San Diego County have described sellers over the past three years who “cashed out” and moved to lower-cost areas.

A San Diegan could see a relatively small home, by national standards, turned into a bigger property somewhere else. Of the 50 largest metros, LendingTree said Cleveland, Ohio, had the least amount of $1 million and more homes at just 1%.

The median home value in Cleveland metro was $217,300 in 2023, compared to $864,900 in San Diego County.

Other metros with small percentages of $1 million homes were Buffalo, New York (1.2%); Louisville, Kentucky (1.4%), and Memphis, Tennessee (1.5%).

Channel said a $1 million house might still sound like a mansion in one’s mind, but that the reality is — in places like San Diego — it is closer to a middle-class property.

“One million dollar homes are becoming more common, especially in places like San Diego,” he said. “For lack of a better term, they are becoming less luxurious. Even 20 years ago, even in San Diego, $1 million probably would have bought you a pretty nice place.”

Home prices played a factor in the recent presidential election, according to an NBC News analysis of voting and housing data. In the top 10% of counties where it was ranked most difficult for buying a home, the median shift to Donald Trump was 4.5 percentage points up from 2020, compared to 3.1 percentage points in counties where it is the easiest to buy.

In San Diego County, NBC said the shift to Trump compared to 2020 was an increase of 8.6 percentage points.

The president-elect has suggested he would cut housing costs by easing environmental and permitting rules. The 2024 Republican Party platform says removing undocumented workers from the nation will lower home prices, but many experts have said immigrants have a very small role in prices and are more likely to be renters.

Source: SDuniontribune by Phillip Molnar