Imperial Beach, California.
Typical home $830,276 (+2.5% in a year), asking rent $2,822 (-0.6%). San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,133 (+96%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,954 +2%
- $810,321$830,276 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $91,932 +12%
- $738,344$830,276 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Imperial Beach$4,358
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 30 years.
Typical home values in Imperial Beach, CA rose 2.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Imperial Beach, CA fell 0.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Imperial Beach runs $2,892/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $3,315 in May 2024.
That is $5,714 a month against $2,822 rent: a $4,358 mortgage payment, plus $467 property tax and $889 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Imperial Beach
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$5,714
- Renting$2,822
- Mortgage only$4,358
Property tax · $467/mo 0.68% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for San Diego County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $889/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Imperial Beach, San Diego County, California
Imperial Beach is a city of 26,137 people in San Diego County. Half its households earn more than $86,111 a year and half less, against $106,268 across San Diego County; 15% of its people live below the poverty line. 31% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 69% are rented. Unemployment in Imperial Beach was 5.4% in August 2026, and San Diego County had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Imperial Beach is a small coastal city in San Diego County, at the southwestern edge of the country. It is a young place by comparison with many American towns, and most homes here are rented rather than lived in by their owners. Incomes run below the county's, and a larger share of residents live below the poverty line than most people would expect in a place with such high home values and rents. Winters are mild and summers stay on the cool side, with very little rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants and hotels, and in professional and business services. Some of the largest workplaces across San Diego County are the University of California-San Diego, the County of San Diego and San Diego Unified. Unemployment is close to where it stood a year ago, and a modest share of people work from home.
Things to do. Right in or beside town are the Tijuana River and Border Field State Park, a protected area at the edge of the coast. A short drive away is Petco Park, the baseball stadium. A longer drive brings you to Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo.
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- 9,340households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. San Diego County had 1,535,067 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in February, with highs near 65° and lows near 48°; warmest in August, with highs near 75° and lows near 65°. About 9 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Imperial Beach Ream Field Nas weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in San Diego County
- University of California-San DiegoUniversity or college18,717
- County of San DiegoSocial service agency18,392
- San Diego UnifiedSchool district11,195FTE
- Ucsd Medical CenterGeneral hospital10,244FTE
- National UniversityUniversity or college5,052
- illuminaBiotechnology research and development laboratories or services in the medical sciences4,687
- National UniversityColleges, universities, and professional schools4,649
- San Diego State UniversityUniversity or college4,229
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2,263 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 408,395 people in all across the county; Imperial Beach has two of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
- Earthquakesrelatively high in parts of Imperial BeachRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of Imperial BeachRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Imperial Beach’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on San Diego County and the San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA metro.
Imperial Beach home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Imperial Beach$830,276
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Imperial Beach listings — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Imperial Beach34.39%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Imperial Beach106
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Imperial Beach22
Zip codes with a Imperial Beach address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Imperial Beach — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.