Santee, California.
Typical home $795,214 (-1.0% in a year), asking rent $2,829 (+3.2%). San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,227 (+114%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $7,959 -1%
- $803,174$795,214 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $120,811 +18%
- $674,403$795,214 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.
- Santee$4,174
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 21 years.
Typical home values in Santee, CA fell 1.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Santee, CA rose 3.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Santee runs $2,644/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $3,096 in Jan 2025.
That is $5,473 a month against $2,829 rent: a $4,174 mortgage payment, plus $448 property tax and $851 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Santee
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$5,473
- Renting$2,829
- Mortgage only$4,174
Property tax · $448/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 · $851/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 Santee, San Diego County, California
Santee is a city of 60,037 people in San Diego County. Half its households earn more than $113,394 a year and half less, against $106,268 across San Diego County; 8% of its people live below the poverty line. 72% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 28% are rented. Unemployment in Santee was 4.8% 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 professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 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. Santee is a city in San Diego County where most homes are lived in by their owners, and household incomes run a little above the county's. Typical home values and rents are high, and a larger share of people hold a four-year degree than you might expect for a suburban city of its size. Winters are mild and summers are warm, with very little rain and almost no snow.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, shops and manufacturing. Some of the largest workplaces in Santee are Santee Schools, Costco Wholesale and Target. The trip to work takes a fairly long time for many people, and a good number work from home.
Things to do. Mission Trails Regional Park, a protected area, is a short drive away and suits walking and time outdoors. San Diego Stadium and Snapdragon Stadium are both a short drive away for sports and large events. A longer drive brings you to Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo.
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- 21,196households
- 35%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 17%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 December, with highs near 68° and lows near 42°; warmest in August, with highs near 89° and lows near 65°. About 12 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the El Cajon weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Santee
- Santee SchoolsSchool district646FTE
- Costco WholesaleWholesale grocer379
- TargetDiscount department stores258
- WalmartDiscount department stores248
- TC Construction CompanyConstruction management, water and sewer line206
- Phil's BBQ of SanteeRestaurants, carryout166
- Tower GlassGlazing contractors164
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter131
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 47 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,536 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- Wildfirerelatively high in parts of SanteeRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of SanteeRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Santee’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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.
Santee home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Santee$795,214
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Santee listings, and the typical home goes pending in 18 days — the market is heating up.
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.
- Santee31.29%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Santee18
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Santee127
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Santee45
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Santee$763,631
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Santee100.58%
Zip codes with a Santee address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Santee — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.