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Imperial Beach Real Estate - Homes for Sale in Imperial Beach, CA

Imperial Beach is San Diego's southernmost coastal city, sitting within ZIP code 91932 just north of the US-Mexico border, with Border Field State Park marking the city's southern edge along the coast. The Imperial Beach Pier anchors the town, a fishing pier first built in 1909, replaced in 1963, and rebuilt again after storm damage before reopening in 1989, and it now reaches about 1,500 feet into the Pacific, the southernmost pier in California. Seacoast Drive runs along the sand past a mix of small, older beach cottages, duplexes, and newer oceanfront condos, and the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve borders the city, protecting the largest coastal wetland in Southern California.

Imperial Beach

Imperial Beach became its own city in 1956, the tenth incorporated city in San Diego County, but people had been building out this stretch of sand well before that. The pier has always been the center of it. The original opened in 1909, was worn down by storms through the 1940s, and was replaced by the current pier in 1963, which was itself rebuilt and reopened in 1989 after more storm damage, and it still draws people out over the water today to fish or just watch the sunset. The character here has always leaned toward surf town over resort town, and that shows in the housing, older single-family homes and duplexes on modest lots mixed in with newer condos closer to the water, generally at prices that run lower than most other San Diego beach communities.

$1,114,779

Average Sales Price

$917,500

Median Sales Price

272

Total Listings

26,856

Population

About Imperial Beach

Imperial Beach is the southernmost city in California and on the entire West Coast, sitting about 14 miles south of downtown San Diego and roughly five miles from downtown Tijuana. The city incorporated on July 18, 1956 and covers about 4.3 square miles inside zip code 91932, built around a pier that has quietly become San Diego's last pier standing after Ocean Beach's closed in 2024. The current pier, 1,491 feet long, was rebuilt after 1986 storm damage and reopened in March 1989. Waterman Dempsey Holder first surfed the big waves off the nearby Tijuana Slough in 1937, and Bob Simmons, often called the father of the modern surfboard, moved to Imperial Beach in 1950 to keep riding them. It is a small, unpretentious beach town that has not been remodeled into something else, and home prices here run well below what the same ocean access costs a few miles north.

Seacoast Drive is where most of the dining sits. SEA180 Coastal Tavern and The Tin Fish both sit near the pier with ocean views built into the seating plan, and Brigantine, a San Diego seafood tradition dating back to 1969, has a location here too. Pier Plaza and the surfboard bench walk are still an active part of daily life, and the pier itself remains open to walk or fish from. One thing worth knowing directly: untreated sewage flow from the Tijuana River has caused repeated beach closures along the shoreline near the border for several years, addressed through ongoing infrastructure projects at the federal and local level, with the area around the pier and the north beaches typically staying open. It is real, and it is worth understanding before you buy near that stretch of water.

Imperial Beach's housing is smaller and older on average than Coronado or Point Loma, with a mix of beach cottages close to Seacoast Drive and more standard single story homes inland toward Palm Avenue. Recent data shows the median sale price in 91932 at $821,000, down about 2% from a year earlier, with homes averaging 66 days on market compared with a San Diego County median of 27 days (source: Redfin). Priced correctly, homes here still move. Central Elementary carries a GreatSchools rating of 3 out of 10, and Mar Vista Senior High School, grades 9 through 12, holds a rating of 5 out of 10. There is no trolley station inside Imperial Beach itself; the nearest is Palm Avenue Station a few miles north. Downtown San Diego is about 14 miles north, typically a 25 to 30 minute drive, and the airport is about 16 miles away.

LISTINGS

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3D

Price Dropped by $20K

$675,000

2 Beds3 Baths1,172 SqFt

525 Sandpiper Way, Imperial Beach, CA 91932

Condo

Listed by Joe Lyons of Coldwell Banker West

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1/34 34

Active

$1,050,000

3 Beds2 Baths1,208 SqFt

1431 California St., Imperial Beach, CA 91932

Single Family Home

Listed by Shirley Smith of Coldwell Banker West

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1/18 18

Active

$449,000

2 Beds1 Bath798 SqFt

1328 IRIS Avenue #2, Imperial Beach, CA 91932

Condo

Listed by Susy Espinosa of Coldwell Banker West

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