Picture two Del Mar listings this summer, both priced around $3 million. One sits on a bluff-top street with an ocean view and a front-row seat to the erosion headlines. The other sits a mile inland, tucked against Crest Canyon, marketed as the quiet alternative for a buyer who wants Del Mar without the cliff-edge drama. Most buyers assume the inland house is the safer bet. The public record on what is actually happening underneath both properties tells a different story.
The bluff's risk has a start date, a budget, and an end date
The bluff-top home's exposure is the one everyone already knows about, and it is also the one with the clearest paper trail. Since spring 2024, the San Diego Association of Governments has been running Phase 5 of its bluff stabilization project, a $88 million effort covering 1.7 miles of track from 15th Street to the bridge at North Torrey Pines Road, and construction is scheduled to run through 2027, according to SANDAG's project page. Crews are installing support columns, extending seawalls, and rebuilding drainage. As of early August 2026, the southern section of Sea Cliff Park is closed for that work and isn't expected to reopen until the end of the month, and periodic construction near the seawalls is set to continue through the rest of summer 2026.
That is a real cost to owning above the bluffs right now: noise, lighting, and a temporarily narrowed slice of park access. But it comes with something the inland alternative does not have, which is a horizon. The bluffs are eroding at roughly six inches a year, a rate SANDAG's acting director of engineering has cited publicly, and in June 2022 the California Coastal Commission required the agency to get the tracks off the bluffs entirely by 2035, as reported by the Coast News. SANDAG's own materials note the eventual realignment is expected to open up new coastal access and building opportunity along that stretch once the rails are gone. A bluff-top buyer today is underwriting a known, funded, dated disruption, one that current planning points toward resolving in the owner's favor over time.
The inland risk has no start date, no budget, and no end date
The canyon-adjacent house is the one that reads as boring on a listing sheet, and that is exactly the problem. Crest Canyon and the Camino Del Mar corridor are two of the surviving study alignments in SANDAG's LOSSAN Rail Realignment project, the long-range plan to move the tracks off the bluffs and inland through a tunnel. At a February 2025 board meeting, SANDAG directors voted to advance route options that include a tunnel under Crest Canyon, a tunnel under Camino Del Mar, a route from the San Dieguito Bridge east toward Interstate 5, and reinforcing the current bluff alignment, reported by the Coast News. Cost estimates from that same reporting range from $1.9 billion to $2.5 billion for reinforcing the bluffs, $3.3 billion to $4.4 billion for the Camino Del Mar tunnel, and $3.8 billion to $5.1 billion for the route running from the San Dieguito Bridge toward a Crest Canyon portal and onward along Interstate 5.
None of those routes has been chosen. SANDAG released an updated Notice of Preparation for a Draft Environmental Impact Report in May 2025 and opened a 45-day public comment period, then began geotechnical testing at several Del Mar and San Diego locations in September 2025. As of its most recent project update, SANDAG states plainly that a decision has not been made on which alignment will be built, and that "it is too soon to know how many homes will be impacted." No list of affected parcels exists yet, for any of the routes.
That silence is exactly what makes this the harder property to underwrite. If a tunnel alignment runs under a canyon-adjacent block, the exposure includes subsurface eminent domain, portal construction near residential streets, and years of disruption with no fixed completion date attached. Residents have said as much directly to the SANDAG board. One resident, Monica Meredith, put the stakes bluntly at the February 2025 meeting, warning that a homeowner could be told "your home will be taken from you with eminent domain." The Del Mar City Council has formally opposed eminent domain and portal placement near homes as part of its guiding principles for the project, but a city's stated preference is not the same as a finalized route.
Where the risk actually sits
| Location | What buyers usually assume | What the record actually shows |
|---|---|---|
| Bluff-top streets (15th St. to North Torrey Pines Rd.) | Highest risk, avoid | Known $88M stabilization plan running through 2027, track removal mandated by 2035 |
| Crest Canyon corridor | Quiet, inland, unaffected | One of the surviving tunnel study alignments, no parcel list published |
| Camino Del Mar corridor | Walkable Village charm | Also a surviving tunnel study alignment, portal locations undetermined |
| Streets outside all three current study corridors | Assumed clear | Not on the current alignment maps, but the study routes have already changed twice since 2024 |
That last row matters as much as the first three. SANDAG narrowed its original three-route proposal after more than 1,500 public comments, then came back with a broader set of options in early 2025. A block that reads as clear of the project today has been redrawn out of and back into consideration before. Nothing about this process has been static.
Why the median price never shows any of this
Del Mar's own numbers make this worse for anyone trying to shop by headline stat. The 92014 zip code's median sale price ran $3.3 million in January 2026, up 18.4 percent from a year earlier, with only 140 to 160 total closed transactions across all property types in a typical year and somewhere between 25 and 80 active listings at any given time. Days on market have stretched to roughly 72 days from list to close. With that little volume, a single bluff-top sale or a single Crest Canyon sale can swing the citywide median on its own, and the number tells you nothing about which side of the rail realignment maps the home sits on. Two homes a mile and a half apart, both called "Del Mar," can differ by $2 million or more on comparable square footage once location relative to the coast, and now relative to these study corridors, is factored in.
What to actually check before you write the offer
- Pull up the current alignment maps on SANDAG's LOSSAN Rail Realignment page and check whether the address sits within any of the surviving study corridors, not just whether it's near the coast.
- Ask the listing agent whether the seller has received any geotechnical testing notices, since that work began at specific Del Mar and San Diego locations in September 2025.
- For anything within the 1.7-mile Phase 5 zone between 15th Street and the North Torrey Pines Road bridge, ask about the construction schedule directly, since that timeline runs through 2027 and affects daily livability now.
- Check the City of Del Mar's rail projects page for the latest Del Mar Weekly construction updates before closing, since schedules shift with weather, tides, and funding.
- Do not treat "inland" as a synonym for "clear." Confirm it against the current maps, not last year's version.
Quick answers
Could my home actually be taken by eminent domain? No route has been finalized, and SANDAG has stated it does not yet know how many homes would be affected under any alternative. The risk is real for properties inside the Crest Canyon and Camino Del Mar study corridors, but it is not yet assigned to specific parcels.
Is the bluff-top risk actually worse than the inland risk? Not necessarily. The bluff-top risk is disruptive but bounded by a published budget and a 2035 mandate. The inland corridor risk has no comparable ceiling yet, which is the harder thing for a buyer to price.
Every Del Mar sub-market carries its own version of this question, and the answer changes block by block, not just by zip code. If you're comparing homes on either side of these lines, The Higgins Group can walk the current SANDAG maps with you against a specific address before you write an offer. Request a Complimentary Home Valuation and we'll build the comparison around the property you're actually considering.
