Del Mar's Median Price Can't Tell You Which Streets Sit Above SANDAG's Tunnel Route

Two homes went on the market in Del Mar this year, both close to 2,400 square feet, both priced within shouting distance of $3.3 million. One sits near Stratford Court, close enough to the bluff edge that the Pacific Surfliner passes just below the yard. The other sits inland near Del Mar Heights Road, roughly a mile and a half away. On a spreadsheet built from the citywide median, these are the same market. In practice, one of them sits somewhere inside the study area for a multi-billion-dollar rail tunnel that has not yet been routed, funded, or finalized.

That gap between the median and the map is what buyers evaluating Del Mar right now need to understand before they fall in love with a listing photo.

The Six Inches a Year That Started This

The rail line that carries Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner and NCTD's COASTER through Del Mar runs along the coastal bluffs, and those bluffs are eroding. A SANDAG engineer put a number on it during a 2024 briefing: the bluffs are losing roughly six inches of ground a year, enough that landslides and seismic activity have forced repeated shutdowns of the line. SANDAG's own project page, updated on July 23, 2026, still describes this as an active problem the agency is managing in real time, not a historical footnote.

The short-term fix is already under construction. The Del Mar Bluffs Phase 5 stabilization project is installing support columns, extending seawalls, and improving drainage along the corridor, at a cost of roughly $88 million, funded through a mix of state, federal, and local dollars. Construction has been running since spring 2024 and is scheduled through 2027, designed to hold the current alignment for about 30 more years. As of the most recent SANDAG update, the southern section of Sea Cliff Park is closed through the end of August for this work, and periodic work near the seawalls will continue through the summer.

That's the patch. It is not the fix. SANDAG has been explicit that Phase 5 buys time while the agency studies where to permanently move the tracks.

Three Routes, One Decision That Hasn't Been Made

The long-term project, called the LOSSAN Rail Realignment, aims to pull 1.7 miles of track off the bluffs entirely and into a tunnel further inland. As of this writing, no route has been chosen. That single fact is the reason a citywide median cannot do the job buyers want it to do.

SANDAG's board voted in February 2025 to advance a set of alignment options for further environmental study rather than narrowing to one. The two options that would run tracks under Del Mar itself are known as the Crest Canyon alignment and the Camino Del Mar alignment, both of which involve a north portal near Jimmy Durante Boulevard and a route continuing south toward Los Peñasquitos Lagoon near the fairgrounds. A third option, sometimes called Alternative A, would send the tunnel from Solana Beach along Interstate 5 instead, avoiding a bore directly beneath Del Mar's residential streets but running under the Del Mar Fairgrounds and Stevens Creek. Estimated costs range from roughly $1.9 billion for a bluff-reinforcement, no-tunnel option up to $9 billion for the longest I-5 route studied.

Since that vote, the process has moved into technical work rather than a public decision. Geotechnical field testing to understand the underground soil structure began in September 2025 at multiple sites in Del Mar and San Diego. SANDAG's page, again as updated July 23, 2026, states that the agency anticipates publishing a Notice of Intent to prepare a federal Environmental Impact Statement later this year, working alongside the California High-Speed Rail Authority on behalf of the Federal Railroad Administration. No alignment has been selected. No timeline for construction funding exists yet.

Del Mar's City Council has not endorsed any of these options. In earlier public comments, Mayor Dave Druker suggested residents preferred the I-5 route because it would keep construction and long-term train noise away from the city's core, while other officials and residents pushed back on the idea of a tunnel running beneath homes at all.

Why the Median Doesn't Catch This

Del Mar sells roughly 140 to 160 homes a year across every property type. That is a thin enough sample that a single high-end sale or a single distressed sale can swing the monthly median by a meaningful margin, which is one reason the 92014 median sale price jumped to about $3.3 million in January 2026, up sharply from the year before. A market that small does not have the transaction volume to price in a risk as diffuse and long-dated as an unresolved tunnel route.

Here is the actual mechanism. Buyers and appraisers price what they can compare. Right now, nobody can point to a closed sale on Crest Canyon Road or Jimmy Durante Boulevard and say "that home sold for less because of tunnel risk," because the route hasn't been chosen and the market hasn't had a reason to discount it yet. The risk exists. It is just not legible in the comps, which means it will not show up in a median calculation until the day SANDAG actually picks a corridor, at which point it will show up all at once, concentrated on the specific streets inside the chosen alignment.

That is a very different situation from, say, flood risk, which insurers already price continuously. This is a risk sitting in a queue, waiting for a single decision to convert it from invisible to specific.

What This Means If You're Looking at a Specific Address

If you are comparing homes in Del Mar right now, the question worth asking is not "what's the median doing" but "where does this specific parcel sit relative to the current rail line and the two Del Mar tunnel study corridors." A few practical steps:

• Pull the current SANDAG alignment maps for the LOSSAN Rail Realignment project and check where the address falls relative to the Crest Canyon and Camino Del Mar study areas, particularly near the Jimmy Durante Boulevard and Los Peñasquitos Lagoon portal zones.
• For any bluff-edge parcel, budget for an independent geotechnical evaluation rather than relying on the seller's disclosure alone. Bluff stabilization work is ongoing through 2027, and construction noise, night work, and access changes near the corridor are a near-term reality regardless of which long-term route wins.
• Ask specifically whether the property has received any SANDAG outreach, easement inquiry, or geotechnical testing notice. Field testing has been active in Del Mar and San Diego since September 2025.
• Recognize that this due diligence applies unevenly. A home in Del Mar Heights or a Carmel Valley-adjacent parcel carries essentially none of this exposure. A home along the existing corridor or inside either Del Mar tunnel study zone carries all of it, whether or not a route is ever finalized.

None of this means don't buy in Del Mar. It means the sub-market you're actually buying into matters more than the citywide number on the listing sheet, and right now that sub-market distinction is defined as much by a rail agency's unfinished environmental review as by square footage or ocean view.

FAQ

Has SANDAG chosen a final route for the tunnel? No. As of the most recent SANDAG update, the project remains in environmental review, with geotechnical testing ongoing and a federal Notice of Intent anticipated later in 2026. No construction funding has been secured for any alignment.

Could a home be taken through eminent domain? The Del Mar City Council adopted a set of guiding principles for the project that explicitly oppose eminent domain and portal placement near homes. No specific properties have been identified for acquisition because no alignment has been chosen.

Does this affect every home in Del Mar equally? No. The exposure concentrates near the existing bluff corridor and near the two Del Mar-specific tunnel study zones around Crest Canyon and Camino Del Mar. Homes further inland, including much of Del Mar Heights, are largely outside these study areas.

When might this actually resolve? Earlier project materials cited a target of finalizing a plan in 2026 with construction and completion around 2035, though funding for design and construction beyond the current environmental study has not yet been identified. Treat any specific completion date as provisional until SANDAG publishes a finalized alignment.

If you're weighing a specific Del Mar address against this backdrop, or trying to figure out what a listing's proximity to the corridor actually means for your offer, FW Property Group can walk the parcel-level details with you before you write anything down. Request your free home valuation and we'll factor in exactly where your address sits relative to what SANDAG is studying.