Coastal Currents · October 2026
The trail is back.
The Beach Trail reopens below Mariposa, the ocean floods the Balboa Peninsula, why a small San Juan Capistrano listing sold quickly, and six numbers on San Clemente's September: rates jumped and the town sped up anyway.
Published by Adam Boehrer, Real Estate Agent, Pacific Sotheby’s International Realty, DRE #02419464.
A Note From Adam
The Beach Trail fully reopened this morning. A landslide took out the bridge below Mariposa in January 2024, and you have not been able to walk the trail end to end since. I have missed it more than I expected to miss a walking path.
That trail is where we walked our daughter when she was a newborn. Early mornings, mostly. It was beautiful and it was peaceful, and it has been that kind of place for our family ever since.
Now she'll be riding her bike down it. Time does not slow down.
Neither do I, apparently. Between work and family and travel, I have been busy lately in a way I don't love. The thing I need most is a little quiet. Some silence. Time to be with God and get back to the man I want to be. A man of peace, of joy, of light.
Instead I check my phone. I put on a podcast. Music. Anything, really, so silence never gets any room. Because if it did, I might have to do the harder work sitting underneath it.
I don't have this figured out. But the trail is open again, and that seems like a decent place to start.
On The Coast
The ocean came into Newport.
The same morning the Beach Trail reopened here, the ocean came over the sand in Newport Beach.
High tide hit around 9 a.m. Friday on top of swell from Tropical Storm Rachel. The surf came in about double what was forecast, broke through the 20-foot sand berms at the Wedge, and ran into the streets of the Balboa Peninsula from roughly 21st Street down to 6th. Parts of Balboa Boulevard sat under nearly two feet of salt water. Cars were towed. Water got into homes. The city declared a local emergency and closed the peninsula to everyone but residents. Streets in Laguna Beach flooded too.
That is twice in about a month. Over Labor Day it was Beach Road in Capistrano Beach, where at least fourteen homes were damaged.
The reason is the same both times. The water offshore is warm, tides are already running about a foot above normal, and a summer of El Niño swell has stripped away the sand that normally stands between the ocean and the houses. NOAA, the federal weather agency, puts the odds of a very strong El Niño this winter at better than 90 percent. And winter, when the big storms usually arrive, has not started.
Most homes in San Clemente and Dana Point sit well above all of this. If yours is at beach level, or on or under a bluff, October is a better month than January to read what your insurance actually covers. Standard homeowners policies generally exclude both flood and earth movement.
What I'm Watching
I had a listing that sold quickly. Here's why.
It was a small house in San Juan Capistrano. Two bedrooms, about a thousand square feet, detached, remodeled, on the bike path that runs down to Doheny.
The reason it sold quickly is that it was obvious who it was for. Small house, great neighborhood, a price that works as a first home. That buyer is a first-time buyer, and everything about the listing was built to speak to that one person.
That is less common than it sounds. A lot of homes get listed without pointing at anyone. They try to attract everybody and end up not really speaking to anybody.
So here is what I do before a home goes on the market. I ask who the one, two, maybe three buyers are that will want this exact house most. A first-time buyer. Someone moving up from a condo. Someone looking for a second place near the water. Then I do the research to figure out how the marketing can speak directly to them.
Price matters, obviously. But this is what changes the quality of the people who walk into your open house, and the quality of the offers they write.
By The Numbers
San Clemente, September 2026
Six numbers from the month mortgage rates jumped.
-
12 days
Median time on market for single-family homes that closed in September, down from 16 in August
-
2.9 mo
To clear every single-family home for sale at the current pace, against 3.2 months a year ago
-
105
Single-family homes on the market, down from 130 a year ago
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84 days
Expected market time for every home listed on October 1, against 109 days a year ago
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43%
Of homes currently listed have already cut their price
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100.0%
Of asking price, on average, for the 55 homes of every type that closed in September
The 30-year fixed went from 6.71 percent in early September to 7.28 percent in early October, the highest it has been since late 2023. San Clemente sped up anyway. Homes sold in 12 days instead of 16, and at 99.2 percent of their last asking price instead of 97.5.
The plain reason is supply. There are 19 percent fewer homes for sale here than a year ago. And twelve days is only for the homes that sold. Of the ones still sitting, 43 percent have already cut their price. Same town, same month.
San Clemente In Context
How the coast compares, October 2026
The same three numbers for the coastal neighbors, as of October 1.
| City | Market Time (days) | Price Cuts | Sale / List |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Clemente | 84 | 43% | 100.0% |
| San Juan Capistrano | 117 | 45% | 100.3% |
| Dana Point | 173 | 33% | 98.1% |
| Laguna Beach | 213 | 41% | 95.0% |
| Newport Coast | 223 | 31% | 96.6% |
San Clemente's clock is 25 days shorter than it was last October. Dana Point's is 59 days longer and Newport Coast's is 43 days longer. Dana Point is a small market and ten contracts can swing that number, but the direction is not subtle.
If you are buying, a higher rate has not bought you a discount in San Clemente. The room to negotiate is a few miles north.
Market time is expected market time in days, the time it would take to sell every home now listed at the current pace. Sale / list is September closings under $5M. Ten-year growth in home values, Zillow: San Clemente +118%, San Juan Capistrano +98%, Dana Point +116%, Laguna Beach +92%, Newport Coast +133%.
Pass It Along
Know someone thinking about selling?
If they are weighing the fall against waiting for spring, I am happy to walk them through who their buyer is and what the number should be. Forward this along, or send them my way. I'd love to learn more.
San Clemente sales figures are single-family homes, September 2026, from the California Regional MLS via InfoSparks. Expected market time, price reductions and the five-city comparison are all property types as of October 1, 2026, from the Pacific Sotheby's International Realty market report. Ten-year growth from the Zillow Home Value Index through August 2026. Rates from the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey. El Niño outlook from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. Newport Beach flooding as reported by CBS Los Angeles, KTLA and NBC Los Angeles. Beach Road damage as reported by ABC7 and CBS Los Angeles. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. If your property is already listed, this is not intended as a solicitation.