Encinitas, Calif.: A Beach Town Where Prices Rise With the Tide

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more quintessential California surf town than Encinitas, a sun-drenched pocket of coastal North County San Diego where wet suits hang like flags from bungalow porches and taco shops promise “No shirt, no shoes, no problem.” But when Morgan and Trevor Gates moved back to the area in 2018 after spending a year in Boulder, Colorado, it wasn’t so much Encinitas’ beachy energy that convinced them to buy a home in the neighborhood of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, with its dramatic bluffs and cluster of oceanfront restaurants. It was its elementary schools.

“We liked the vibe, the landscape and the downtown that feels like a small town,” Morgan Gates said of Encinitas, a 20-square-mile city with about 60,000 residents. “But first and foremost, it was the school district.”

Morgan Gates, 39, is a real estate investor and stay-at-home parent to three young children. She and Trevor Gates, 40, an executive vice president of finance for a mortgage firm, had lived in several communities in San Diego’s North County before their year in Boulder, including Cardiff, which operates its own micro school district of just two elementary campuses.

They rented at first, spending nine months combing real estate listings and visiting properties to buy. Their budget ranged up to $1.3 million, and they still owned their home in Boulder, a 1970s A-frame cabin on 17 acres. But as in all of Encinitas, home prices in Cardiff are high and creeping higher, and it soon became clear that they needed to rethink their plan.

“We were hoping we could keep and carry our Colorado home,” said Morgan Gates. “But once we were in the market, we started considering homes up to the $1.5 million range. We realized that would probably be pushing it on both ends.”

In early 2019, the couple sold the Boulder house for $1.1 million, then closed a few months later on a three-bedroom, two-bath, single-story, 1966 house in Encinitas with an ocean view. The asking price was $1.5 million, but it needed work — inspections uncovered termites and rodents. They settled on a price of $1.34 million, then spent another $100,000 on renovations, including ripping out all the floors and bathrooms, and replacing the kitchen.

The headaches were worth it, she said. Her husband, an avid surfer, can get to the beach in 10 minutes. And their three children love the many street fairs, workshops and farmers markets that Encinitas offers. “Encinitas, and Cardiff especially, has so many random and kitschy events,” she said. “I love its crazy, funky vibe.”

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Bil Zelman, 47, didn’t start surfing until after he moved to Encinitas with his wife, Megan Power, 41, in 2014. The couple had been living in South Park, a trendy neighborhood close to downtown San Diego, in a 1915 Spanish revival cottage. The architecture was beautiful; the street noise not so much.

“In my younger years, living next to a bar was awesome, but as you get older, it changes,” said Zelman, a photographer and director originally from upstate New York. “We sold our house and had a little bit of money so we bought a house up here two blocks from the beach. And we fell in love with how quiet it was.”

They also loved how quickly home prices were rising. They bought their 4-bedroom, 3 1/2 bath beach home in the neighborhood of Leucadia for $1.4 million and realized four years later that they had made a smart investment — they were able to sell it for more than $2 million. Their next move? Building a custom home on 2.5 acres in Olivenhain, Encinitas’ easternmost neighborhood, where dusty equestrian trails roll through winding hills. Streetlights and light pollution are restricted under Olivenhain’s Dark Skies policy, which gives it the feel of a rural country outpost despite being 10 minutes from the Pacific Ocean.

“Megan has always said, I want to be able to walk out my door and be in nature. This is a budding nature preserve, there’s nothing else around,” Zelman said. “And we’re still only 20 minutes from the airport.”

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What You’ll Find

Encinitas, about 25 miles up the coast from San Diego, is sandwiched between two lagoons: San Elijo Lagoon to the south, and Batiquitos Lagoon to the north. U.S. Highway 101, which runs along its western border, is its lifeblood, dotted with restaurants, coffee shops and surfboard stores.

Larger lots and older, more affordable homes can be found in the Olivenhain and Village Park neighborhoods, which sit east of Interstate 5, and both classic beach cottages and sprawling new mansions are on offer in the oceanfront communities of Leucadia and Cardiff. New Encinitas is more suburban, with popular big-box retailers like Target and Home Depot and plenty of tract homes, while Old Encinitas, home to the city’s downtown and its most beloved beaches, retains its classic beach-community feel.

The more affordable townhomes and apartment complexes sprinkled around the city, many of them close to the coast along Highway 101, attract younger renters.

What You’ll Pay

Prices in Encinitas are climbing and affordable housing is generally scarce — a trend that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the state government.

In 2019, there were 430 single-family homes on the market, at a median sales price of $1.4 million. In 2018 there were 417 such homes on the market at a median price of $1.28 million, and in 2017 there were 446 homes at a median price of $1.2 million, according to data from the California Regional Multiple Listing Service.

Studios in Encinitas rent for as little as $1,400 a month, with two-bedroom apartments going for around $2,500. Renters looking for luxury apartments or ocean views should expect to pay more than $4,000 a month.

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In 2019, Encinitas was one of more than 40 California cities singled out by Gov. Gavin Newsom for failing to comply with state affordable-housing mandates. A new plan to facilitate the development of such housing was approved by the state a few months later, though not without a fight from many Encinitas residents.

Earlier this month, the city opened an overnight parking facility for homeless residents living in their cars on the grounds of Leichtag Commons, a property of the Leichtag Foundation, a Jewish nonprofit organization. The Safe Parking Program, led by the city of Encinitas, hosted by the Leichtag Foundation and operated by the Jewish Family Service of San Diego, is the first of its kind in North County San Diego. This initiative also faced pushback in the community.

Charlene Seidle, the executive vice president of the Leichtag Foundation, said that nearly all those who utilize the lot either live or work in Encinitas. “This is a community that should be acting to make a difference and not just talking about it,” she said.

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The Vibe

“When I was in high school, downtown Encinitas had a laundromat, a movie theater, a couple diners, and a couple funky little beach shops. Now it’s where I go on date night,” said Dane Soderberg, 41, a real estate agent who grew up in Encinitas. Soderberg’s father, the surfer and filmmaker Steve Soderberg, still lives in town. “Encinitas has maintained its surf culture and laid-back heritage while its real estate market and retail space has showed gentrification.”

Encinitas has seen significant development over the past two decades, including the creation of the Encinitas Ranch planned community of 500 homes, as well as big-box shopping and chain dining nearby. (Its only movie theater, the La Paloma theater, is nearly 100 years old.)

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Peter Caspersen, 39, moved to Encinitas with his wife, Chelsea, in 2009, just before the couple married. Children were already on their mind, and Encinitas — with its good schools and great beaches — felt like the right choice. (The couple now have two sons, ages 5 and 7).

“I don’t think you can do better than Encinitas,” said Caspersen, a real estate agent who specializes in San Diego’s coastal communities. “My wife would have been happy in a shoe box as close to the beach as possible. And I love the beach myself, and the coastal life.”

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The Schools

The Encinitas Union School District operates nine elementary schools, five of which — Capri Elementary, Flora Vista School, Ocean Knoll Elementary, Olivenhain Pioneer Elementary and Paul Ecke Central Elementary — are within Encinitas city limits. Cardiff Elementary and Ada Harris Elementary, which are operated by the autonomous Cardiff School District, are also in Encinitas.

During the 2018-19 school year, 68% of third-graders in the Encinitas Union School District and 72% in Cardiff met or exceeded standards for English and Language Arts (ELA) on California’s Smarter Balanced Assessment test; 70% in Encinitas and 90% in Cardiff exceeded standards in math.

Middle- and high-schoolers feed into the San Dieguito Union High School District and attend either Diegueño Middle School or Oak Crest Middle School for seventh and eighth grades. High schoolers attend either La Costa Canyon High School, where during the 2017-18 school year, 92% of students who took the SAT exam met bench marks for English, or San Dieguito Academy, where 94% of students met bench marks for English. Districtwide, 96% met bench marks, compared with 81% in the San Diego Unified School District and 71% statewide.

In math, 81% of students at La Costa Canyon and 87% of students at San Dieguito Academy met SAT bench marks in 2017-18, compared with 87% of students districtwide, 60% in San Diego Unified and 50% across California. (For the SATs, the College Board defines students as “college ready” when their test scores meet a bench mark of 480 in English and 530 in math).

The Commute

If you want to unify a handful of Encinitas residents, simply mention the northbound traffic on I-5 at rush hour. The drive from downtown San Diego at 5 p.m., which can be done in as few as 25 minutes on clear roads, often takes more than an hour.

The Coaster commuter train runs north and south through San Diego County, serving eight stations including Encinitas; fares are $5 each way, and up to $182 for a monthly pass.

The History

In 1669, Gaspar de Portolá, governor of Baja California, led the first expedition to what is now Encinitas. Jabez Pitcher, considered the founding father of Encinitas, settled the town in 1881.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

Encinitas, Calif.: A Beach Town Where Prices Rise With the Tide

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