✨Our Final Take of 2025 (and What’s Next for San Diego)

As we wrap up 2025, thank you, truly, for tuning in each month, for sharing the journey, and for making space for the stories, shifts, and small moments that define life along the coast.

This month’s Coast & Key SD brings together the trends, data, and discoveries shaping how we live and invest, coast to coast, and right here at home.

We’re already excited for what’s coming in the new year, and we’ll be right here, continuing to bring you what matters, before it hits the headlines.

This edition’s all about navigating smarter and spotting what others scroll past.

Let’s get into it:

• 🎥 Aumann on Air: Inside Maderas and the luxury of quiet

• 🍴 Coastal Culture: Eat & Do: Rob’s birthday dinner + holiday nights

• 🏡 Our Picks: Coastal living at its finest

• 📈 Market Moves: The narrow window most sellers don’t see twice

• 🤖 AI Advantage: The home assistant that gives you time back

• 🏗️ On the Horizon: 31,500 new homes, does coastal still win?

LET'S DIVE IN ↓

🎥 AUMANN ON AIR

Inside Maderas: Where Privacy Becomes the Amenity

Some places don’t feel exclusive because they try to be.

They feel exclusive because they don’t need to.

This month on Selling San Diego, we stepped inside Maderas Golf Club. Not to talk about fairways and trophies, but to understand why certain communities carry a different kind of gravity.

Tucked a few miles off I-15, Maderas sits in a pocket of Poway that feels deliberately removed from the rest of the city.

Removed from noise, free of through traffic, and built without pretense. Just space, privacy, and a culture built around quiet consistency.

What stood out most wasn’t the course itself, although it’s ranked Top 100 in the country alongside Torrey Pines. It was the way people experience it. You don’t feel like a visitor here. You’re treated like you belong.

Monthly wine events. Intimate weddings. Personal service that feels more private-club than public access. It’s the kind of place where CEOs, athletes, and families all coexist without spectacle.

Across the street sits one of the most understated luxury pockets in North County. Seventy-eight homes. Ten small streets. Single-story estates built around views instead of attention.

This wasn’t a tour of a property. It was a look at why people choose quiet over chaos.

Why they move away from the coastline crowds.

Why lifestyle now means space, calm, and control.

🎬 Watch the full episode here to experience why Maderas feels like a place you don’t stumble into. You arrive by design.

🍴 COASTAL CULTURE: EAT & DO

Rob’s birthday dinner + holiday nights to remember

La Dolce Vita Ristorante

Tucked near Prospect Street in the heart of La Jolla, La Dolce Vita blends old-school Italian comfort with the kind of quiet, romantic energy you usually only get in Europe.

Think handmade pastas, rich risottos, fresh seafood, and classic Italian desserts that deserve a slow finish. The wine list runs deep, the service feels personal, and the atmosphere is quietly romantic without trying too hard.

📍 1020 Prospect St, La Jolla

📸 See how we celebrated Rob’s birthday there in our reel here

Holiday Moments Worth the Detour

Our family loves this time of year.

Here are two of our favorite ways to lean into the season:

SeaWorld Christmas Celebration

SeaWorld hits different in December. Over a million lights. Reindeer sightings. Holiday-themed animal shows. Even Santa gets a big wave like he’s part of the crew.

It’s the kind of outing that reminds you why staying close to home can still feel like an adventure.

📍 SeaWorld San Diego, Mission Bay

Lightscape at San Diego Botanic Garden

Some nights are meant for slowing down. This is one of them.

Lightscape quietly transforms the Botanic Garden in Encinitas into a glowing, mile-long walk of sculpted light. Floating florals. Firefly-style fields. Misty archways that feel almost unreal.

This is the perfect place to bring the whole fam.

No rides. No rush. Just light, sound, and shared steps.

📍 San Diego Botanic Garden, Encinitas

🏡 OUR PICKS

Coastal living at its finest

🌊 372 Playa Del Norte St | La Jolla

3 Beds | 3 Baths | 1,308 Sq. Ft.

A block from Windansea. Not figuratively. Literally.

This home sits one short walk from one of La Jolla’s most iconic stretches of sand, where mornings start with surf checks and evenings slow down with salt air and sunset walks.

Designed with the ease of a townhome and the soul of a beach cottage, the space balances charm with practicality.

Upstairs bedrooms open to soft ocean glimpses that catch the light just right. Open living areas invite quiet dinners and easy hosting.

And the EV charging station quietly modernizes the everyday without changing the feel.

Walk to village cafés, local wine bars, coastal restaurants, and boutique shops. Live in the rhythm, not just near it.

🌴52 Pacific Beach Dr | Pacific Beach

5 Beds | 5 Baths | 3,217 Sq. Ft. | $19,500/mo

This one was made for long days and slow evenings.

Perfectly positioned between the bay and the ocean, this custom-built stunner blends coastal elegance with California ease: think open skies, soft stone finishes, and a floor plan that flows straight to the fire pit.

Main home features:

• 4 bedrooms, including 2 en-suites

• Spa-inspired baths + a kitchen built to impress

• Seamless indoor-outdoor transitions

ADU perks: A full 1-bedroom unit with calming Mission Bay views. Ideal for guests, in-laws, or anyone craving a little extra space.

Outside, it’s all dialed in:

• Built-in grill,

• multiple al fresco dining areas

• a fire pit that keeps the party going post-sunset.

Steps to sailing, surfing, and everything PB.

P.S. We’re very excited to share that two new listings are on deck in La Jolla. Each priced north of $7M. Keep an eye on your inbox next month for the first look! 👀

📈 MARKET MOVES

The Window Most Homes Don’t Get Twice

San Diego doesn’t stop. It restrategizes.

Rates quietly settled around 6.09% - 6.35%. The lowest they’ve been in nearly 18 months.

The shift didn’t show up in noise. It showed up in behavior:

• Condos are seeing 9.6% more pending sales.

• Single-family homes are up 4 - 6% in the last 30 days.

But the story isn’t movement. It’s positioning.

Inventory is sitting at 3.8 - 4.2 months in most coastal pockets. That’s balance. That’s breathing room. And that only matters if your home enters the market clean.

Once a home crosses 60 - 90 days, something subtle happens.

It stops being “new.” It becomes “missed.”

Buyers scroll past. They assume. They hesitate.

Across San Diego:

• Luxury homes above $1.5M are still moving with steadiness

• Homes under $1.2M are facing longer conversations

• Median pricing sits between $930K–$980K

• Typical market timelines stretch from 40 to 100 days

Spring inventory usually grows by 30 - 40% as March and April arrive. More listings. More choice. Less leverage.

For homeowners whose listings expired or stalled, this is the narrow part of the calendar where repositioning matters more than waiting.

Not louder. Cleaner. Clearer.

Sometimes the second launch is the one the market was built to receive.

🤖 AI ADVANTAGE

The Assistant You Didn’t Know You Needed at Home

Life doesn’t get loud all at once. It stacks quietly.

School drop-offs. Practice reminders. Dinner decisions. The kind of things that live in your head longer than they should.

We came across a quiet tool called Ohai that does exactly what most families never have time to do. Organize.

Why you’ll love it:

• Fewer missed pickups and last-minute scrambles

• Clearer schedules without the endless back-and-forth texts

• A lighter mental load by the end of the week

We’ve leaned on it for our little one’s school days and weekend plans.

Fewer texts. Fewer “Did you remember?” moments.

More space to actually be present.

No steep learning curve. No noise. Just a calmer week.

🏗️ ON THE HORIZON

31,500 New Homes Are Lined Up for San Diego’s Middle Ring

Some changes arrive with cranes and scaffolding.

Others move through planning rooms, and quietly reshape the future before most people are looking.

Clairemont and the College Area are advancing zoning changes that would allow 31,500 new homes, tied directly to trolley lines, rapid bus routes, and aging retail corridors that are set to be reimagined.

The numbers that actually matter:

• 14,000 new homes in Clairemont

• 17,500 new homes in the College Area

• Building height limits rising to 35 - 65 feet

• SB 79 activates in July 2026, enabling 5 - 6 story housing near transit hubs

Why coastal homeowners should care:

When supply rises inland, pressure doesn’t disappear. It shifts.

Density inland often makes coastal, walkable, lifestyle-centered neighborhoods more scarce by comparison, not less.

This won’t rewrite your street overnight. But it quietly shifts where buyers, renters, and long-term investors aim next.

And in this market, direction isn’t noise. It’s strategy.

Reply to this email and tell us what you think: does this kind of growth make coastal living feel more valuable… or more fragile? We’re genuinely curious where you land.

Thanks for reading this month’s Coast & Key SD.

That’s a wrap on 2025.

Thank you for reading along, sharing notes, and being part of this community each month.

We’ve loved bringing you the stories, insights, and local finds that shape life around here… And we’re just getting started.

2026 is already on our radar, and we’re lining up even more to share: fresh listings, sharper data, and the kinds of hidden pockets and policy shifts that actually move the needle.

Until then, wishing you a season of good waves, good meals, and a few quiet wins.

See you in the new year!

Best,

P.S.: Looking beyond San Diego? We’re proud members of The Private Client Network, the leading collective of top luxury brokers in the U.S. In fact, our network was recently featured on the back cover of The Wall Street Journal.

From Aspen to Austin, Palm Beach to Park City, we offer insider access and white-glove service across 80 of the most desirable luxury markets in the country.

If you or someone you know needs trusted guidance in any of these areas, we’re your first call.

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