South Bay, San Diego
South Bay San Diego Real Estate
South Bay San Diego is a vibrant region located south of downtown San Diego and just north of the Mexico border with the Pacific Ocean to the west. Cities in South Bay San Diego include Coronado, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, National City, Bonita, and other communities with a San Diego address. Learn more about living in each of these South Bay communities below.
Some Favorite Neighborhoods Include:
Coronado
A peninsula connected to San Diego by the Coronado Bridge, and to Imperial Beach (“IB”) by a causeway/sandbar called The Silver Strand, Coronado is its own thing. It’s not quite attached to the rest of San Diego, physically or otherwise.
Coming over the bridge from San Diego, the views from the apex of the bridge looking toward Coronado on a clear day will take your breath away. You see the stunning round-red-roofed Hotel del Coronado with Point Loma beyond it, and the brilliant blue of ocean and bay all around, a sight to behold.
Famous for its all-wood construction, the “Hotel Del” was built in 1888 and put San Diego on the map. It was the location for the hilarious film Some Like it Hot (still funny). It even has its own ghost! Kate Morgan is the famous ghost who, as the story goes, was pregnant and left high and dry by her man. She supposedly killed herself, but there seems to be a new theory that she was murdered!! <Queue suspense music> (This isn’t the only supposedly haunted place in San Diego).
Fun fact: If you go to Coronado and notice a Wizard of Oz theme on signs on the gift shop, it is because Frank Baum, the author of the original book, used to live there.
Coronado is also famous for the Naval Amphibious Base (‘AmPHIBase’) where the Navy Seals train. Even some locals don’t know it, but the vegetation grown on the beach where they train is shaped in such a way that the plants spell out CORONADO when you look at it aerially.
Dotted with beautiful homes and charming restaurants and shops, plus miles of gorgeous coastline as well as its own golf course, it is a beautiful place to live. You will understand why Coronado isn’t your best bet if you’re looking for a bargain.
National City
National City is a centrally located city which sits just north of Chula Vista, on the bay. As evidence of its importance in early San Diego history, it boasts a rather impressive stock of Victorian style homes that still remain, a testament to their genteel past.
One way to spot a Victorian from a distance is look for a giant (and I mean GIANT) Canary Date Palm—the stout ones with the orange ‘hair.’ They used to plant them next to those homes.
National City has a large Filipino population which makes it a first choice for finding Filipino food and shopping in places like the Red Ribbon Bakery (if you go, grab some pandesal, slightly sweet, soft and fluffy bread rolls… really, they’re so good).
It is also home to the very famous National City Mile of Cars. Now I’m not sure it is exactly a mile, but it’s definitely long and has LOTS of cars. For sure one of the highest concentration of cars for sale in the entire county.
The Paradise Valley Hospital is another National City institution. Employing 1138 people, the hospital is National City’s largest private employer.
National City is enjoying something of a resurgence. At some point it lost its footing as a glamorous neighborhood. Developers ran roughshod over it, filling it up with strip malls and less desirable housing stock. It has also seen its share of gang problems.
It seems to be turning a corner though. The Bayview Tower condos went in near the bay, and really changed the vibe of the bay side part of National City. Then the area nearby that started looking more spruced up every time I saw it and just keeps getting better and better.
Chula Vista
Once a sleepy suburb of gentle rolling hills, the new, eastern part of Chula Vista started getting developed and there was no going back. In the late 1980’s developers began building Eastlake and Otay Ranch in the eastern part of the city which had, until that point, been totally undeveloped. Eastlake and Otay Ranch, together with “Original Chula Vista” (aka Chula Vista West or “old” Chula Vista) now occupies 52 square miles and had 243, 916 inhabitants as of the 2010 census.
Chula Vista has a lot going on! It has its own marina and bay front park, a nature center, a big fabulous water park, an amphitheater attracting top name talent, plus lots of restaurants and shopping.
It also has the U.S. Olympic Training Center, a training center for U.S. In 2017 it was renamed the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center. The 150-acre campus supports training for eight Olympic sports, including canoe-kayaking, rowing, soccer, archery, cycling, field hockey, softball, and track.
A note on schools. Chula Vista offers a lot of dual immersion elementary schools that educate in both English and Spanish. If you send your kid there, the end result is a fully bilingual 5th grade graduate. Pretty awesome.
There is a big Latin factor in Chula Vista, so it is a very bilingual (English/Spanish) place with lots of good Mexican food restaurants, including cool ones like Frutas on Broadway, which has great fruit salads, sandwiches on torta bread, and fruit smoothies.
Chula Vista also offers a lot of different housing choices, tons of condos, plus plenty of decent single family residences, many at affordable prices. There is quite a range on price.
This is a popular program so the homes within the boundaries of the dual immersion schools are generally more in demand.
Bonita
Bonita is bonita (‘beautiful’ in Spanish) and is a semi-rural area ringed by more developed communities. It has a relaxed, naturey sort of feel. The parcel sizes tend to be large, part of what makes it feel a little like a large, rather upscale ranch. A centerpiece of Bonita is a popular walking trail that goes around the golf course. Very scenic.
Be prepared to encounter horses in Bonita! Equestrian culture is part of the vibe there, and there are a variety of horse trails and stables.
Bonita also has one of the most popular little churches in the South Bay, the Little Chapel of the Roses, a charming little church with beautiful grounds that is a favorite place for weddings (as well as a place where people say their final goodbyes).
Plaza Bonita is a large popular shopping mall. (I remember when it went in! I’m old!) The mall is right off the freeway, so the energy of the mall traffic doesn’t disturb the more relaxed center of Bonita.
The housing prices here are generally higher than close neighbor Chula Vista or National City.