by Scott Murphy
As a San Diego real estate agent, I am also a student of living costs for various cities and what constitutes a middle class.
Median income can be a good measuring stick for determining middle class incomes. This chart from Huffington Post’s Planet Money illustrates median income for the 30 largest cities in the United States, excluding suburbs and rural areas–which would probably explain the absence of Orange County, CA and other suburban-oriented communities. In this diagram, 25 percent of the population is well below the median, which is well below the upper level at 75 percent.
My first interest, of course, has to do with San Diego home sales and where San Diego’s 2013 median income is $71,000 among “families” where two or more people are related by birth, marriage or adoption. So frustrating for many, though, is the difficulty in qualifying for a mortgage in San Diego’s high-priced market. And rental rates have been rising exponentially as well to the point where it’s almost as economical to buy as it is to rent a home in San Diego County.
What we can say for sure is that San Diego middle class is likely larger and lives better than those in San Jose, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. And our weather in San Diego is infinitely better!
Regardless of where you fall on the San Diego economic scale, you can easily search all San Diego homes for sale via the form below: