Barstow, California.
Typical home $264,787 (-0.9% in a year), asking rent $1,467 (+7.4%). Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$801 (+136%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $2,306 -1%
- $267,093$264,787 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $49,032 +23%
- $215,755$264,787 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Barstow$1,390
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Barstow, CA fell 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Barstow, CA rose 7.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Barstow runs $361/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $573 in Jan 2025.
That is $1,828 a month against $1,467 rent: a $1,390 mortgage payment, plus $155 property tax and $283 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Barstow
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$1,828
- Renting$1,467
- Mortgage only$1,390
Property tax · $155/mo 0.70% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for San Bernardino County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $283/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Barstow, San Bernardino County, California
Barstow is a city of 25,415 people in San Bernardino County. Half its households earn more than $53,380 a year and half less, against $85,478 across San Bernardino County; 23% of its people live below the poverty line. 44% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 56% are rented. Unemployment in Barstow was 7.8% in August 2026, and San Bernardino County had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Barstow is a desert city in San Bernardino County, long known as a railroad and highway town. Residents are younger than in many American towns, and more of them rent their homes than across the county as a whole. Household incomes sit well below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than in most places. Winters are mild and brief, summers are very hot, little snow falls, and rain is scarce.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in restaurants and hotels, in shops, or in transport and warehouses. Among the largest workplaces in town are Barstow Unified, Walmart and Barstow Community Hospital. Commutes are about what people face in many cities, and few people work from home.
Things to do. The Western America Railroad Museum is in or beside town and suits an easy afternoon. A longer drive away are Rainbow Basin, a protected area of colorful desert badlands, and the California Route 66 Museum, which looks at the old highway that runs through the region. Harper Lake is another longer drive for those who want open desert scenery.
Report a mistake
- 9,145households
- 13%of adults have a degree
- 23%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. San Bernardino County had 848,961 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 57° and lows near 35°; warmest in July, with highs near 102° and lows near 72°. About 5 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Barstow weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Barstow
- Barstow UnifiedSchool district601FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters395
- Barstow Community HospitalGeneral hospital267FTE
- JB Hunt187
- City of Barstow165
- First Student73
- San Bernardino County- TAD - Barstow 0673
- Food 4 Less FoodsCoSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores66
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 12 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,183 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of BarstowRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Barstow’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on San Bernardino County and the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
Barstow home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Barstow$264,787
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Barstow listings, and the typical home goes pending in 24 days — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Barstow24.05%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Barstow24
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Barstow150
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Barstow39
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Barstow$277,687
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Barstow address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Barstow — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.