The San Luis Obispo housing market has peaked in recent years and has become a desirable but pricey place to live. Families, students and the elderly have been on a battleground for affordable housing and the problem does not seem to be going away anytime soon. Supply and demand has made housing expensive and hard to find in the SLO area.
The New York Post named San Luis Obispo the seventh most expensive housing market in America in 2025.
What exactly brings people into the SLO area? The town is home to one of the top California State schools, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. That is precisely what brought Candace Brown’s son and his roommate into the area, eventually leading to their journey to find housing. “It was extremely challenging finding something reasonable, but also something that fit their needs,” Brown said.
After multiple Facebook posts and visits to the Cal Poly housing website, the roommates and their mothers were able to narrow down what they needed from their home. Their most essential need was a parking space. Additionally, the house or apartment had to be in San Luis Obispo and within walking distance to the university. They quickly realized that the housing got more expensive closer to the campus.
The competition for housing is so fierce that Brown took a morning off work to stand in line for more than two hours to apply for an apartment building when her son was in class. The group was relieved to secure housing for this upcoming school year. “It wasn’t really what they wanted,” Brown said. “They feared they wouldn’t get anything if they had waited any longer.”
Other people come to the area to settle down against the backdrop of the Pacific Ocean, like those who rent from Karen Ross, a San Luis Obispo landlord. “San Luis Obispo is a great and unique place to raise a family,” Ross said.
Ross has only rented to families, and to make the housing more appealing, she allows pets, does not require renters’ insurance and said she’s lucky to have never had an issue with her renters. “Most of the people I rent to have been referred to me by people I know,” Ross said. “Young families that are desperate to find a large enough home, but still affordable, which is hard to come by in this area.”
Ross noted that the younger generation that grew up in the area, like her own children, family and friends, are returning home to high rental prices, forcing them to move in with their parents or explore outside their hometown. “It just no longer seems realistic for the next generation to be able to afford a home in the area, which is disappointing,” Ross said.
Peter Joehnk, a SLO county realtor, says the housing issue began post-COVID. A majority of his clients are “Bay Area or LA folks that are experiencing housing freedom for the first time after many companies have shifted to remote work,” Joehnk said. “San Luis Obispo is the cheapest coastal county, and that’s mainly what’s drawing them in.”
Housing has become a challenge for many, whether you are buying a home or looking to rent.“50% of my buyers are Boomers, 30% are Gen X and 20% are Millennials,” Joehnk said. The county is in a housing crisis, and no matter your age or socioeconomic status, there is insufficient housing.
“I rented a two bed, two bath condo with an ocean view for $1,100 back in 2010, which is a small fraction of what you would pay today,” Joehnk said.
The cost for housing is not going to decrease, according to Joehnk.
“It would take a catastrophic event for the real estate prices around here to drop,” he said.