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San Diego Housing Inventory: What's Available Right Now (July 2026)
William Routt·Jul 23, 2026·5 min.
There are 5,956 homes for sale in San Diego County — up 4% in two weeks, but still 18% below normal. Full inventory breakdown by price range and area.
Updated July 2026 | Data as of July 21, 2026
There are 5,956 homes for sale across San Diego County — up 4% in the past two weeks, and the highest level since September 2025.
That sounds like relief for buyers, and directionally it is. But the fuller picture is more complicated: inventory is still 18% below where it would have been in a normal pre-pandemic July, and the recent climb has less to do with sellers rushing to list than with buyers stepping back. Homes are accumulating because they aren't selling, not because there's a wave of new supply.
Here's what's actually on the market, how it compares historically, and what it means depending on which side of the transaction you're on.
Active listings: 5,956
Change over two weeks: +239 homes (+4%)
One year ago: 6,410 — 8% more than today
Pre-COVID average (2017–2019): 7,049 — 18% more than today
New listings January–June: 20,562 — 28% below the pre-COVID norm
Homes withdrawn January–June: 6,487
Distressed listings: 78 (1.3% of the market)
The 239-home increase over two weeks was the largest jump since late April. Normally a rise like that means sellers are coming to market in force.
That's not what happened here. It coincided with a sudden 5% drop in buyer demand, driven by mortgage rates climbing to 6.55%. Inventory in 2024 and 2025 saw similar mid-summer spikes, but demand held steady through them. This year it didn't.
The distinction matters. Inventory built by new listings means more choice for buyers. Inventory built by homes failing to sell means a growing pool of stale listings — and right now, 60% of everything available has already been on the market at least 30 days, with 34% sitting past two months.
San Diego County also hasn't hit its annual inventory peak yet. That typically arrives somewhere between July and August. Last year the peak came in mid-July at 6,410 homes — right around this point on the calendar. In 2023 and 2024 it came later. Which path 2026 takes will say a lot about how the autumn market shapes up.
Related: San Diego buyer demand · Why homes sit on the market in San Diego
Even with the recent climb, there are 1,093 fewer homes for sale today than in a typical pre-COVID July — 18% below normal.
The reason is the lock-in effect. A very large share of San Diego homeowners refinanced or purchased between 2020 and mid-2022, when 30-year rates sat in the 2.7% to 3.5% range. Selling today and buying again at 6.55% means a dramatically higher monthly payment on an equivalent home. For many households the math simply doesn't work, so they stay put — and their home never becomes inventory.
You can see it clearly in listing volume. Through June, 20,562 homes came to market in San Diego County. The pre-COVID average for the same stretch was 28,549 — a shortfall of 7,987 listings, or 28%.
The trend has been easing from its 2023 low. Compared with the first half of prior years, 2026 has seen 5,600 more new listings than 2023 and 2,309 more than 2024 — but 1,152 fewer than 2025. Sellers are slowly returning, just not quickly enough to rebuild normal supply.
Inventory isn't evenly distributed, and this is where the countywide number stops being useful.
$0–$750k — 2,187 homes (37% of inventory). By far the largest segment, and the most crowded. This band draws only 32% of buyer demand, so competition among sellers here is intense.
$750k–$1M — 1,236 homes (21%). The healthiest balance in the county: 21% of supply against 26% of demand.
$1M–$1.25M — 681 homes (11%).
$1.25M–$1.5M — 457 homes (8%).
$1.5M–$2M — 472 homes (8%).
$2M–$4M — 570 homes (9%).
$4M–$6M — 176 homes (3%). Only 1% of demand.
$6M+ — 177 homes (3%). Also 1% of demand.
The takeaway for buyers: more than half of everything available is under $1 million, so if that's your range you have real selection but also real competition from other buyers. Above $4 million, supply and demand are badly mismatched — 6% of inventory chasing 2% of buyers.
Related: San Diego market time by price range
Homes above $2 million — the top 10% of the San Diego market — account for 923 active listings, up 40 homes (5%) over two weeks.
Year over year the luxury picture is actually tighter, not looser: active luxury inventory is down 206 homes, an 18% decline. Fewer high-end sellers are listing than last summer. The problem in that segment isn't oversupply, it's that luxury demand fell 10% in two weeks, to just 182 pending sales.
Related: San Diego luxury home market
There's a category of supply that doesn't show up in the active count, and this year it's enormous.
Between January and June, 6,487 San Diego County sellers pulled their homes off the market — more homes than are currently listed. That figure is up 7% from the same period in 2025, up 107% from 2024, and up 170% from 2023.
These are sellers who listed, waited, got no acceptable offer, and withdrew. Some will relist in the fall, some next spring, some never. It's shadow inventory in the most literal sense — supply that exists but isn't counted, waiting to reappear.
Cyclically, withdrawals stay elevated through the back half of the year, dip slightly in November, then surge in December as sellers pull listings for the holidays.
Related: Should you pull your home off the market?
For anyone watching inventory levels and thinking about 2008: there are 78 distressed homes on the market countywide — 32 foreclosures and 46 short sales. That's 1.3% of all listings and 1.4% of demand.
The count is up by five from two weeks ago, and up from 27 a year ago. But at these absolute numbers, that's noise, not a trend. Foreclosures and short sales each accounted for 0.3% of June's closed sales, meaning 99.4% of San Diego sales were made by sellers with equity.
Rising inventory in 2026 is a demand story. It is not a distress story.
Related: Is the San Diego housing market going to crash?
Supply concentrates heavily in a handful of areas. The City of San Diego alone accounts for 2,258 active listings — well over a third of the county total. Downtown San Diego carries 348, and Escondido, Oceanside, Chula Vista, Carlsbad, and El Cajon each hold between 230 and 320.
At the other end, small coastal and rural markets carry very thin inventory — often under 50 active listings — which makes their local statistics swing dramatically from one report to the next.
Related: San Diego market time by city
If you're buying, you have more to choose from than at any point in the past ten months, and the 34% of listings sitting past 60 days is where your negotiating leverage lives. But note that inventory is still well below normal, and rising supply hasn't translated into falling prices — homes are still closing at 100% of list. Expect selection, not discounts.
See also: How much negotiating room do San Diego buyers have?
If you're selling, you're competing against more listings than at any point since last September, and most of your competition has already been sitting for a month or more. That's actually an opportunity — a fresh, well-priced, move-in-ready listing stands out sharply against a field of stale ones. Nearly half of June's closed sales went pending within two weeks.
See also: How to price a home in San Diego · How long does it take to sell a house in San Diego?
If you're waiting for inventory to normalize before making a move, understand what that would require. Getting back to pre-COVID supply means roughly 1,100 more homes on the market — and with the lock-in effect still holding, that most likely arrives through lower mortgage rates freeing up sellers, not through a sudden surge in listings.
See also: Mortgage rates and the San Diego housing market
Market data via Reports on Housing, as of July 21, 2026, covering San Diego County residential resales. Active listing inventory reflects homes available on the open market and excludes pending sales. Analysis by William Routt, Routt Home Team (DRE 01937558).
Want to know what's available in your specific neighborhood and price range? Reach out — we'll put together a current list and walk you through it.
San Diego's market has entered its lull phase: inventory up 4%, demand at a 14-year July low, and market time now 101 days. Prices are holding — but 60% of listings have been sitting a month or more.
Listing prices show what sellers want; sold prices show what buyers paid. Here's the median sale price in every major San Diego community, from $4.1M to $651K.