San Diego County remains difficult to enter for prospective homeowners, particularly for households working in lower-paid occupations. In 2025, 17% of county households could afford the median-priced home, according to the California Association of Realtors, with the same figure reported by KPBS. Affordability was 11% for both Hispanic or Latino households and Black households.
Across California, 19% of households could afford a median-priced home in 2025. The statewide median price for a detached home was $875,550, and the required annual household income was $221,200, according to the Realtors data.
The pay-home price gap
A ZipRecruiter estimate puts the average annual pay for a San Diego trash-truck driver at $59,743, or $28.72 an hour, as of Sept. 10, 2026. Its listed middle range runs from $41,900 to $70,000 a year.
Those figures describe an individual wage, not a household's complete finances or eligibility for a mortgage. They nevertheless illustrate the scale of the challenge: the estimated average salary is substantially below the annual income the California affordability data say is needed for a median-priced detached home statewide. The comparison is a broad context measure, not a calculation of what every trash-truck driver can or cannot afford.
A longer-term measure of rising prices
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' FRED database shows the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller San Diego home-price index at 440.18045 in June 2026, compared with a January 2000 base of 100. The index is a measure of how San Diego-area home prices have changed over time; it does not measure trash-driver wages or establish the finances of any particular household.
One reported family example
The Los Angeles Times reported that Salomon Olea bought a three-bedroom Escondido house for $127,000 in 1998 after beginning sanitation work in 1994. The Times also reported that his son, Angel, is 33, drives commercial trash trucks for a private waste company, rents in Escondido and is saving for a down payment while raising three children.
The Olea family's experience is a reported example of changing housing prospects for workers in the field, not a representative financial profile for all trash-truck drivers. The Times account does not by itself show how wages, savings, debt, credit, household income or other factors affect the ability of similar workers to buy.
Assistance depends on location and eligibility
For eligible middle-income first-time buyers purchasing in the City of San Diego, the San Diego Housing Commission offers $50,000 in total assistance: a $40,000 deferred down-payment loan and a $10,000 closing-cost grant. The agency says the program applies to purchases in the City of San Diego, so it does not automatically cover an Escondido purchase.
The County of San Diego says qualifying low-income first-time buyers may receive a deferred loan of up to 22% of the purchase price for a down payment and up to $10,000 for closing costs. The county program is limited to specified jurisdictions and directs applicants in other cities to the appropriate agency. A household earning around $60,000 would still need to meet each program's income, location and other eligibility requirements.
