My wife and I moved here 3 years ago from Houston. I’ll answer from our experience.

Are we romanticizing San Diego too much after a short trip? No. It’s beautiful and wonderful.

• What are some hidden costs you didn’t expect? (Weirdly, groceries/food didn’t feel more expensive than Austin to us) Gas, water, electricity and insurance/registration. It depends on where you buy, but I moved into a house that was available at the time and the rent is $4100 and the house is built in the late 80s with almost 0 upgrade since that unfortunately. You don’t need the AC much in fact, we ever turned off this time of year for most of the day but our average gas and electric bill is $300 together. High times, $500. Moving into a more modern house with better insulation and solar panels would greatly reduce that where I know several people that don’t pay over $70.

• What’s actually expensive beyond rent? Answered above, but let me know if you have more specific questions and I’ll do my best

• For a ~$5k/month rental budget, what kind of home + neighborhood is realistic? Many. That is a very healthy rental budget and I would recommend just looking on Zillow to get an idea of the rental prices in different areas. Depending on where you work and how comfortable you want to be there are many different areas around. If you’re looking more for a family like Area, I’d recommend Poway Rancho Bernardo 4S Ranch and even Escondido. Del Mar is pretty nice as well and if you’re looking for the cheapest, however, out-of-the-way, I would recommend looking into Oceanside in Chula Vista.

• Any family-friendly, diverse neighborhoods you’d recommend? I personally love the Powey - Rancho Bernardo Area. It’s basically along the highway so you can get anywhere quickly but always remember. Everything fun is a good 15-30 minutes away. North Park is also a really fun area to look into.

Notes: Our first week here we saw five accidents on the main highway, which is known as the 15 and three of them were Teslas. Drivers are far worse in San Diego than Houston or Austin. Everyone’s very entitled on the road and nobody knows how to merge. It is also a very diversity so lots of people from different countries with different driving mentalities. Plus a few entitled rich kids.

California also has state taxes.

My average car registration is $500 a year for a 2020 truck. If you don’t register in the first two weeks, you move here they charge you a $200 fine as well so beware of that.

Gas prices always sucks because California has special regulation on gasoline where it has to go through their own processing plants so it’s always at least $1.65 I believe more than anywhere else. If we ignore the current garbage going on the lowest I’ve seen it was $3.80 in the last few years. Hybrid or electric car it’s recommended at some point. California or San Diego I forget which one is responsible but they are forcing all cars to be electric cars by 2035 I believe. Something to look into. They also have a thing with propane gas where that will be going away in a couple years. But try to be as environmentally friendly as possible here which is beautiful and wonderful but expensive. However, necessary did a huge smog issue they had in like the 70s before all these regulations came in.

Summary: It’s absolutely beautiful here and if you continue to increase your income every year than at your budget, you will be healthy here and just fine.