San Luis Obispo
Real Estate

This is an overview of the San Luis Obispo real estate market. It is intended as a resource for investors and other home buyers when researching San Luis Obispo homes for sale. Especially if you are intending to be a landlord, it is important to know about what rents people can afford, where they want to live and where the jobs are.

DISCLAIMER
The information is compiled from multiple sources but we cannot guarantee their accuracy. It will be updated every 3 months, however, some of the sources drawn from may be a few years older.

Last updated 3/13/10

OVERVIEW
San Luis Obispo is located on the California central coast, just about midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It's a college town, as Cal Poly San Luis Obispo resides here. The nearby Edna Valley offers wine tasting in wine country.

The area code for San Luis Obispo real estate is 805 and the zip codes are 93401, 93403, 93405, 93406, 93407, 93408, 93409, and 93410. The town covers around 10.7 square miles, with about 4083 people per square mile. San Luis Obispo is in San Luis Obispo County.

Population ranges around 43,000.

MEDIAN HOME PRICE
The median home sales price is $438,000 according to Zillow and $465,000 according to Cyberhomes.

PROPERTY TAXES
$3199 for a median home.

RENTS
The median rent is just over $1000. 78% of the rents are between $750 and $1000. For a 3 bedroom house it's about $2000.

RENTERS VS. HOMEOWNERS
The houses are 34% rented and 66% owner-occupied, with around 4% vacancy.

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME
The median household income is $59,000. Per capita income is $24,600.

COST OF LIVING
The cost of living in San Luis Obispo is higher than the national average.

THE HOUSES
The majority of San Luis Obispo real estate houses were built in the 70's, with the next largest group built in the 40's and 50's. The third largest group were built in the 80's. 6.6% were built in the last 10 years. Three fourths of homes use gas utility, while the rest use electric.

COMMUTING
The majority of commuters take 5-10 minutes to get to their job. The overall average commute time is 15 minutes. Almost 60% live and work in San Luis Obispo itself.

THE PEOPLE
Much of the population of San Luis Obispo real estate is comprised of high income families. They are mostly highly educated working as professionals. There are also a lot of baby boomers as well as lots of college students.

Compared to the rest of California, the median age (30) in here is much younger probably due to all the college students.

About 35% of the people are married and 8% are divorced. 50% have never been married and 5% of the population are widowed.

The residents' ethnicities are made up of approximately 79% white, 12% hispanic (of any race), 3.6% mixed race, and 4.8% other races. Of the 9.5% foreign born residents, 2% are from Europe, 3.3% from Latin America and 3.5% from Asia.

EDUCATION
91% of people have a high school degree or higher, while 41% have a bachelor's degree or higher.

THE WEATHER
The average high temperature in July is 74 degrees and the average low temperature in January is 44 degrees. The area gets about 21 inches of rain annually. You can expect about 285 sunny days per year and 43 rainy days.

CRIME
Crime is fairly low here.