Adam Boehrer Pacific Sotheby's International Realty

Town vs Town

San Clemente vs Dana Point: same school district, same coastline, very different clocks.

They share a border. They share Capistrano Unified. People shop them as if they were one town. They are not. Right now San Clemente would sell through everything on the market in 84 days. Dana Point needs 173. Here is where the two actually differ, on the latest MLS numbers and the things that do not show up in a listing.

Latest available reading: October 1, 2026 snapshot, September 2026 closings.

The Short Version

One town is clearing its shelf. The other one is waiting.

Expected market time is the number I lead with. It takes every home for sale and the current pace of new contracts and asks one question: at this rate, how many days to sell all of it. Days on market only counts homes that already sold, so it flatters a slow market.

San Clemente · October 2026

  • 84

    Expected Market Time

    Days to sell the current supply, all residential, as of October 1. Was 109 a year ago.

  • 43%

    Listings with a Price Cut

    Share of active listings, all price points, October 1.

  • 2.7

    Months of Supply

    Single-family, September. A seller's market reading. Was 3.2 a year ago.

Dana Point · October 2026

  • 173

    Expected Market Time

    Days to sell the current supply, all residential, as of October 1. Was 114 a year ago.

  • 33%

    Listings with a Price Cut

    Share of active listings, all price points, October 1.

  • 3.6

    Months of Supply

    Single-family, September. A balanced market reading. Was 3.9 a year ago.

Sources: California Regional MLS via InfoSparks (ShowingTime Plus), single-family, September 2026, and Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report (October 1 snapshot, all residential). Months of supply: under 3 is a seller's market, 3 to 6 balanced, over 6 a buyer's market.

Side by Side

Every number, same month, same measures.

Two data sets sit on this table, and they measure slightly different things. The single-family rows come straight out of the MLS through InfoSparks for September 2026. The all-residential rows, houses and condos together, come from the Pacific Sotheby's October 1 market report.

Measure San Clemente Dana Point
Expected market time, Oct 1 (all residential) 84 days 173 days
Expected market time, a year earlier 109 days 114 days
Homes listed, Oct 1 (all residential) 120 104
Homes pending, Oct 1 (all residential) 43 18
Listings with a price cut 43% 33%
Months of supply, Sept (single-family) 2.7 3.6
What that reads as Seller's Balanced
Single-family closings, Sept 43 22
Single-family median sale, Sept $2,225,000 $2,942,500
Single-family, % of last list price received 99.2% 98.7%
Median sale under $5M, Sept (all residential) $2.2M $2.3M
Sale-to-list under $5M, Sept (all residential) 100.0% 98.1%
Closings above $5M, Sept (all residential) 0 4
Home value growth, 10 years to August +118% +116%
Home value growth, 1 year to August +5.1% +6.2%

Single-family rows: California Regional MLS via InfoSparks (ShowingTime Plus), September 2026. All-residential rows and the October 1 snapshot: Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report, drawn from CRMLS. Home value growth: Zillow Home Value Index through August 2026, as reported in the same Pacific Sotheby's report.

The Clock

San Clemente got faster this year. Dana Point got slower.

A year ago these two towns were running at almost the same speed. San Clemente needed 109 days to clear its supply. Dana Point needed 114.

Then they split.

San Clemente dropped to 84 days. It has fewer homes listed than a year ago and more of them under contract: 43 pending against 120 listed. Dana Point went the other way, to 173 days, because its contracts fell off faster than its listings did. Eighteen homes pending against 104 listed.

Now the honest caveat. Eighteen is a small number, and in a town this size the clock swings hard on a handful of contracts. In the middle of September, with 28 homes pending, the same Dana Point measure read 99 days. Ten contracts moved it by more than two months. So do not read 173 as a verdict on Dana Point. Read it as this fall's leverage.

Months of supply on single-family homes says the same thing in a quieter voice. San Clemente at 2.7 months is a seller's market. Dana Point at 3.6 is balanced. Neither is a buyer's market. One of them just gives you more room to negotiate this month.

A slow clock is not a bad town. It is a seller who has been waiting, and a buyer who does not have to rush.

Price cuts run the other way, which surprises people. San Clemente has the faster market and the higher share of cuts, 43 percent against 33. That is what a market looks like when it punishes reaching. Homes priced where buyers already are go fast. Homes that come out high sit, and cut.

The Median Trap

Dana Point is not suddenly $700,000 more expensive.

The single-family median in September was $2,942,500 in Dana Point and $2,225,000 in San Clemente. On a headline that looks like a different price class.

It is mostly mix.

Dana Point closed 22 single-family homes in September. At that count, one or two oceanfront sales drag the median wherever they want. Its median was $2,275,000 a month earlier. San Clemente closed 43, which is steadier but still small, and its median ran near $1.88M in both June and July before landing at $2.225M. Neither of those jumps is appreciation. They are which houses happened to close.

The cleaner comparison is the band where most sales actually happen. Across houses and condos under five million dollars, Dana Point's September median was $2.3M on 26 closings. San Clemente's was $2.2M on 55. That is close to the same town.

The real difference is the top. Four Dana Point homes closed above $5M in September, at a $9.7M median, which is where the Headlands and the oceanfront live. San Clemente had none. If your budget starts with a five, Dana Point is the one of these two with a market for it every month.

Over ten years they have tracked each other almost exactly: values up about 118 percent in San Clemente and 116 percent in Dana Point, on the Zillow index through August. Over the past year, Dana Point is up 6.2 percent and San Clemente 5.1.

Not on the Spreadsheet

The differences that decide it are not in the MLS.

The water

Dana Point is a harbor town. The County of Orange is redeveloping Dana Point Harbor through a public-private partnership, and next to it sits Doheny State Beach, which State Parks calls California's first state beach.

San Clemente is a pier town. The municipal pier anchors the Pier Bowl, San Clemente State Beach sits on the south end, and San Onofre State Beach, home of Trestles, starts about three miles south of town. There is no vehicle access to Trestles. You walk in.

The train

San Clemente has two rail stops. The San Clemente station on Avenida Estacion is served by Metrolink, and the San Clemente Pier station is served by Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner and, on a limited schedule, Metrolink. The Orange County Line's stops at this end of the county run Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and San Clemente Pier. None of them is in Dana Point.

That same track runs along the base of San Clemente's bluffs, and it has been shut repeatedly by slope movement since 2022. If a home's value leans on the train or the Beach Trail, read what has actually happened on those bluffs.

Schools

Same district. Capistrano Unified includes all or part of San Clemente, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Niguel, Aliso Viejo, Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita. Assigned schools follow the address, not the city, so check the specific home with the district.

Mello-Roos and HOAs

This one runs tract by tract, not town by town. In San Clemente, Talega carries Mello-Roos from two districts, one for schools and one for water. Next door in Forster Ranch, none of the 250 parcels that sold since 2022 shows a Mello-Roos district. In Dana Point, several coastal neighborhoods are gated associations, Niguel Shores and Monarch Bay in Monarch Beach among them, and the dues and rules come with the house. On any Orange County home, the special assessments show by name on the secured tax bill. Read it before you write the offer, not after.

Short-term rentals

The rules here are opposites, and buyers mix them up constantly.

San Clemente's permit is geographic. There is no cap and no waitlist. A parcel is either inside an area where short-term lodging is allowed or it is not. The catch: the permit is void on the date of sale, so you cannot buy the seller's rental income. You apply fresh. The detail is on the San Clemente short-term rental page.

Dana Point runs a capped program. The City lists a cap of 115 in the Coastal Zone, and 115 outside it with a sub-cap of 60 for non-primary rentals. Once a cap is met, new applications go on a waitlist. More on the Dana Point short-term rental rules.

The bluff and the beach

Both towns have homes on or under a coastal bluff, and both had a hard stretch recently. San Clemente has lived with the rail-corridor slides at Cyprus Shore, Casa Romantica and Mariposa Point. Dana Point had Beach Road in Capistrano Beach this September, where Hurricane Marie surf got into homes and the City red-tagged several of them. Homes on the sand or a bluff edge need a different kind of homework, and I put it all in one place: bluff and landslide risk in South Orange County.

So Which One

Pick the property first. The town follows.

Nobody should choose between these two on a citywide median. Here is how the differences actually sort.

  • You want leverage this fall. Dana Point. A 173-day clock and 18 contracts means sellers have been waiting, and sale-to-list under $5M sat at 98.1 percent.
  • You are selling and want speed. San Clemente has the faster clock, and its September closings came in at 100.0 percent of list. Price it where buyers already are, because the 43 percent cutting their price did not.
  • Your budget starts with a five. Dana Point had four closings above $5M in September. San Clemente had none.
  • A boat, or the harbor. Dana Point.
  • The train. San Clemente, with two stations.
  • A short-term rental. Different problem in each town. In San Clemente the question is the parcel. In Dana Point the question is the cap.

For the full current read on each town, the monthly reports live here: San Clemente housing market and Dana Point housing market. Neighborhood numbers are on the neighborhoods page, including Pier Bowl, Capistrano Beach and Lantern Village.

What I would tell you if you called. Pick the three or four streets you would actually live on, in either town, and let me pull what has closed on those streets. The citywide numbers above tell you which way the wind is blowing. The street tells you what you will pay.

Single-family figures are from the California Regional MLS via InfoSparks (ShowingTime Plus), September 2026. All-residential figures, expected market time and price-cut shares are from the Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report (October 1 snapshot, September 2026 closings). Ten-year and one-year growth are the Zillow Home Value Index through August 2026 as reported there. Single-month medians at these transaction counts track the mix of homes that closed as much as value. Short-term rental, school district, rail and park details are from the City of San Clemente, City of Dana Point, Capistrano Unified School District, California State Parks and OCTA, linked above, as of October 2026; rules change, so confirm with the agency for a specific property. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. If your property is already listed for sale, nothing here is intended as a solicitation.

Questions people ask

San Clemente vs Dana Point, answered.

Is San Clemente or Dana Point more expensive?

It depends which median you read. The single-family median in September 2026 was $2,942,500 in Dana Point on 22 closings and $2,225,000 in San Clemente on 43, per California Regional MLS via InfoSparks (ShowingTime Plus). At those counts a median tracks which homes happened to close: Dana Point's was $2,275,000 a month earlier. Under five million dollars, across houses and condos, the gap nearly closes: a $2.3M median in Dana Point against $2.2M in San Clemente, per the Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report. The real difference is the top tier. Four Dana Point homes closed above $5M in September at a $9.7M median. None did in San Clemente.

Which market is faster, San Clemente or Dana Point?

San Clemente, by a wide margin. As of October 1, 2026, San Clemente's expected market time was 84 days against 173 in Dana Point, per the Pacific Sotheby's October 2026 Market Report. Expected market time is how long it would take to sell every home currently listed at the current pace of new contracts. San Clemente had 43 homes pending against 120 listed. Dana Point had 18 pending against 104.

Is it a buyer's or seller's market in San Clemente and Dana Point?

On months of supply, San Clemente single-family homes sat at 2.7 months in September 2026, which reads as a seller's market, and Dana Point sat at 3.6 months, which reads as balanced. Under three months is a seller's market, three to six is balanced, and over six is a buyer's market. Source: California Regional MLS via InfoSparks (ShowingTime Plus).

Are San Clemente and Dana Point in the same school district?

Yes. Capistrano Unified School District includes all or part of both cities, along with San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Niguel, Aliso Viejo, Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita. Attendance boundaries are set by address, so confirm the assigned schools for a specific home with the district.

Can you run a short-term rental in San Clemente or Dana Point?

Both cities allow them under different rules. In San Clemente, eligibility is geographic, there is no cap, and the permit is void on the date of sale, so a buyer cannot inherit the seller's permit. Dana Point runs a capped program: 115 permits in the Coastal Zone, and 115 outside it with a sub-cap of 60 for non-primary rentals, with a waitlist once a cap is reached.

Two towns, one call

Deciding between San Clemente and Dana Point?

Send me what you are looking at, or just the budget and what matters. I will pull the closed sales on the streets that fit in both towns and tell you plainly where I think the value is. Text or email is the easiest way in.

Phone 949.541.8247

Email [email protected]

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License Adam Boehrer, Real Estate Agent, DRE #02419464, Pacific Sotheby's International Realty

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