San Diego Multifamily Market Report

Metro achieves notable accolade. Strong countywide demand for suburban rentals enabled San Diego to enter the second half of this year with the nation's lowest vacancy rate. Spanning the past 12 months ended in June, renters absorbed 5,100 apartments outside of the CBD, with all 12 submarkets home to vacancy rates ranging from 1 percent to 2 percent. Responding to widespread tightness, developers broke ground on at least nine suburban projects during the first half of this year, lifting the active pipeline outside of Downtown San Diego to more than 8,100 units as of July. The metro's $3,200 affordability gap — the difference between an average mortgage payment and the mean effective rent — suggests these luxury apartments should be well received, namely by higher-earning households and individuals being priced out of homeownership.