San Diego may be expensive in comparison to the south eastern states coastal communities. But it has never been exactly the over inflated realestate market that the north eastern coastal states are, and they don’t even have good weather.
The property taxes out there trump mello roos. I asked my father in law how they figure the tax base out there, he said “nobody knows”. His home was 150k when he bought in the “80’s” and his taxes were somewhere around $6000 a year. I don’t think they are much different now though.
Growing up, and still now, I have never understood why we weren’t more expensive than the north east and the San Fran bay area.