San Diego, CA rent prices by neighborhood: see where they're highest and lowest
Median overall rent across San Diego, CA's 5 mapped neighborhoods is $3,424, ranging from $3,030 in San Carlos to $4,530 in Carmel Valley.
2 cheapest overall
- 1 San Carlos $3,030
- 2 Otay Mesa $3,261
2 most expensive overall
- 1 Carmel Valley $4,530
- 2 Embarcadero $3,519
All neighborhoods, ranked by rent
Click a row to see apartments in that area.
| # | Neighborhood | Median rent | Buildings | Trend | 1-yr change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Carlos | $3,030 | 1 | — | |
| 2 | Otay Mesa | $3,261 | 2 | — | |
| 3 | Middletown | $3,424 | 1 | — | |
| 4 | Embarcadero | $3,519 | 26 | — | |
| 5 | Carmel Valley | $4,530 | 2 | — |
Average rent trend, last 3 months
All bedroom types, citywide. Choose a window above to scope the view.
Compare San Diego, CA to nearby California cities
Median 1-bedroom rent. Click a city to see its market.
How these numbers are calculated
Each neighborhood on this map is a single ZIP code, drawn from U.S. Census Bureau ZCTA boundaries. We label each one with the commonly-used neighborhood name where Google has one (for example "Downtown Austin" instead of "78701"), and the ZIP code itself otherwise. Each building is matched to its ZIP by checking whether its coordinates fall inside the boundary, not by comparing address labels, so a building in San Diego, CA only counts toward San Diego, CA's median even if its mailing address uses a different name.
Median rents are recomputed every 24 hours. We take each property's current floor-plan prices, group them by bedroom count, and take the median across every unit inside the ZIP. ZIPs with fewer than four current listings are hidden from the map until the data fills in. Better to leave a blank than draw a confident color from one floor plan.
For comparison, the U.S. Census Bureau publishes a California median gross rent figure based on survey responses (the 2025 ACS), and Zillow's ZORI index publishes a smoothed monthly observed-rent estimate at the metro level. Both are useful long-run benchmarks but lag the live market by 30–90 days. RentCafe's neighborhood-level averages are similar in spirit to what you see here, but use a different smoothing window.
Want to dig further? Browse every apartment in San Diego, CA, see the city-wide price history for the last 6 months, or read about how the data is collected.