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San Diego home buyer calculators

San Diego home buyer calculators

Four calculators for San Diego buyers. See how much house your income supports, whether you really need 20% down, how buying compares with renting and investing the difference, and what waiting a few years costs. The San Diego benchmarks are sourced, and every assumption is on the page so you can change it.

Jared Harman

By , Real Estate Agent, MatchPoint at eXp Realty of California, Inc.. DRE 02193879

Published . Last updated . Figures are from my own records unless a source is linked.

How much house can I afford in San Diego?

Lenders size your loan mostly by your debt-to-income ratio: your monthly debt payments, including the new mortgage, divided by your gross monthly income. That means a raise often moves your price range more than a bigger savings account does.

Move the sliders and see which one actually moves the number.

Where you are today

$120,000
$60,000
$500/mo
6.75%
43%

Lenders and loan types set different limits. CFPB on debt-to-income

If your income grows

$175,000
18 months

Max price today

$530,096

Max price after the raise

$779,485

after 18 months

Buying power added

+$249,389

Share of income your current debts use5%

Your limit is 43%, the rust line. That leaves 38% of your income for the mortgage, taxes and insurance. Paying down a debt moves the bar left and your price up.

At these settings, a 46% income increase over 18 months adds about $249,389 of buying power. That is about 4.2x your down payment. Saving that much cash usually takes far longer.

Do I need 20% down to buy a home?

Almost certainly not. A smaller down payment means mortgage insurance and a higher monthly payment, but it can also mean buying years sooner.

Here is the same home at four down payments, side by side.

The home

$850,000
6.75%
Per month unless noted3.5% down5% down10% down20% down
Cash needed up front$46,750$59,500$102,000$187,000
Loan amount$820,250$807,500$765,000$680,000
Principal and interest$5,320/mo$5,237/mo$4,962/mo$4,410/mo
Mortgage insurance$410/mo$404/mo$383/monone
Taxes and insurance$1,204/mo$1,204/mo$1,204/mo$1,204/mo
Total monthly$6,934/mo$6,845/mo$6,548/mo$5,615/mo

Putting 5% down instead of 20% means about $127,500 less cash up front. The tradeoff at these settings is about $1,231 a month more, and the mortgage insurance part is not forever.

Mortgage insurance here is estimated for a conventional loan. You can ask your servicer to cancel it once your balance is scheduled to reach 80% of the home's original value, and it ends automatically at 78%. CFPB on removing PMI. FHA loans use their own mortgage insurance, which works differently.

Is it better to rent or buy in San Diego?

Most rent versus buy comparisons stack the deck. This one doesn't. The renter invests the whole down payment and closing costs, and every month owning costs more than rent, the renter invests that difference too.

The buyer earns appreciation on the full home value, not just the down payment. Buyer tax savings stay out of the net worth lines, so the buy side here is conservative. They get their own estimate below the chart.

The purchase

$900,000
10%
6.75%
5%

San Diego since 2000: about 5.8% a year. Case-Shiller San Diego index, Jan 2000 to Jul 2026

$0/mo

Renting instead

$4,200/mo
4%

San Diego since 2000: about 4.3% a year. BLS rent index for San Diego, 2000 to 2025

7%

S&P 500 with dividends, 1928 to 2025: about 10% a year before inflation. NYU Stern historical returns. The default here is set lower, at 7%.

10 years

Your taxes

Your top federal rate, the one your last dollar of income lands in.

If you buy

$702,432

net worth from the home

If you rent and invest

$682,949

portfolio after tax

Buying pulls ahead in

Year 10

Equity gained

$612,432

Rent paid, never returned

$605,108

Net worth over timeBuy: home equity plus side savingsRent: invested down payment plus the difference
$702,432$526,824$351,216$175,608$0Yr 0Yr 2Yr 4Yr 6Yr 8Yr 10buying pulls aheadBuy: home equity plus side savings, year 0: $90,000Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 1: $87,916Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 2: $142,647Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 3: $200,348Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 4: $261,184Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 5: $325,328Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 6: $392,962Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 7: $464,280Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 8: $539,485Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 9: $618,793Buy: home equity plus side savings, year 10: $702,432Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 0: $108,000Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 1: $157,574Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 2: $208,795Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 3: $261,727Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 4: $316,438Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 5: $372,997Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 6: $431,478Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 7: $491,954Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 8: $554,504Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 9: $619,207Rent: invested down payment plus the difference, year 10: $682,949

After 10 years at these settings, buying leaves you about $19,483 ahead of renting and investing every spare dollar. Buying pulls ahead in year 10. The engine is leverage: the home appreciates on its full $900,000 value while you put $90,000 down.

What about tax savings?

Owning can cut your federal tax bill, just less often than people think. Mortgage interest and property tax only help if you itemize, and itemizing only pays when those deductions beat the standard deduction: $32,200 filing jointly or $16,100 single for 2026. IRS 2026 inflation adjustments.

Estimated federal tax savings, year one

$6,847

First-year mortgage interest of about $50,381 plus $10,350 in property tax comes to $60,731. Only the part above the $32,200 standard deduction saves you anything, so at a 24% bracket that's about $6,847 off your federal tax in year one.

Interest counts on the first $750,000 of the loan. IRS Publication 936. Property tax shares a $40,000 cap with your state income tax, and that cap shrinks once income passes $500,000. IRS Topic 503.

State income tax is left out here, so if you already itemize, your real savings could be higher. The savings also shrink a little each year as more of the payment goes to principal. This is a rough federal estimate, not tax advice. A CPA gives you the real number.

One honest caveat. This assumes the renter invests every dollar of the difference, every month, for the whole period. Almost nobody does.

A mortgage doesn't let you skip a month, and part of every payment becomes equity whether you felt like saving or not. So the rent column is the best case for renting, and most real renters land below it.

What does waiting a few years to buy cost me?

Waiting to save a bigger cushion isn't free. While you wait, the price can rise, rent builds no equity, and the down payment target grows with the price.

Drag the wait slider and watch it add up.

The situation

$900,000
5%

San Diego since 2000: about 5.8% a year. Case-Shiller San Diego index, Jan 2000 to Jul 2026

10%
$4,200/mo
4%

San Diego since 2000: about 4.3% a year. BLS rent index for San Diego, 2000 to 2025

3 years

Price then

$1.04M

after 3 years

Added by appreciation

$141,863

Rent paid while waiting

$157,329

Bigger down payment needed

+$14,186

Cost of waiting, year by yearHigher price from appreciationRent paid while waiting
$398,074$298,556$199,037$99,519$0Yr 0Yr 2Yr 4Yr 6you buyHigher price from appreciation, year 0: $0Higher price from appreciation, year 1: $45,000Higher price from appreciation, year 2: $92,250Higher price from appreciation, year 3: $141,863Higher price from appreciation, year 4: $193,956Higher price from appreciation, year 5: $248,653Higher price from appreciation, year 6: $306,086Higher price from appreciation, year 7: $366,390Rent paid while waiting, year 0: $0Rent paid while waiting, year 1: $50,400Rent paid while waiting, year 2: $102,816Rent paid while waiting, year 3: $157,329Rent paid while waiting, year 4: $214,022Rent paid while waiting, year 5: $272,983Rent paid while waiting, year 6: $334,302Rent paid while waiting, year 7: $398,074

At these settings, waiting 3 years costs about $299,191: $141,863 in a higher price plus $157,329 in rent that built no equity. The down payment target also rises by $14,186, because it is a percentage of a bigger number.

What do these calculators assume?

  • A 30-year fixed loan.
  • Property tax of 1.15% of assessed value, with assessed value growing no more than 2% a year under California's Prop 13.
  • Insurance at 0.55% of the price and maintenance at 1%, both growing 3% a year.
  • Mortgage insurance at 0.6% of the loan a year on a conventional loan under 20% down.
  • Closing costs of 2% to buy and 6% to sell.
  • The renter pays 15% capital gains on investment gains.
  • The gain on selling the home is assumed to fall inside the federal exclusion for a main home: up to $250,000, or $500,000 filing jointly, after owning and living there 2 of the last 5 years. IRS Topic 701.
  • The tax savings estimate is federal only and first year only. It counts mortgage interest and property tax above your standard deduction, at the bracket you pick, and is never added to the net worth lines.
  • Every figure is nominal, before inflation.

These are educational estimates, not financial, tax or lending advice. A lender gives you real numbers.