Big Bear City, California.
Typical home $381,323 (-4.2% in a year), asking rent $1,864 (+3.4%). Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,019 (+104%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $16,579 -4%
- $397,902$381,323 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $16,763 -4%
- $398,086$381,323 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.
- Big Bear City$2,001
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Big Bear City, CA fell 4.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Big Bear City, CA rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Big Bear City runs $768/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,091 in May 2025.
That is $2,632 a month against $1,864 rent: a $2,001 mortgage payment, plus $223 property tax and $408 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Big Bear City
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$2,632
- Renting$1,864
- Mortgage only$2,001
Property tax · $223/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 · $408/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 Big Bear City, San Bernardino County, California
Big Bear City, in San Bernardino County, had 12,738 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $71,511 a year and half less, against $85,478 across San Bernardino County; 16% of its people live below the poverty line. 71% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 29% are rented. Unemployment in San Bernardino County was 5.7% in August 2026, and the 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. Big Bear City is a mountain community where residents are older than in most places, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Incomes run below the county's, and a good share of households live below the poverty line. Winters are cold and snowy, with February the coldest month, while summers stay mild, with July the warmest.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, in professional and business services, and in the building trades. Across San Bernardino County, some of the largest workplaces are Yaamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel, San Bernardino City Unified and Loma Linda University Medical Center. Commutes are fairly long, and a noticeable number of people work from home.
Things to do. Baldwin Lake, a lake in or beside town, is the closest of the nearby outdoor places. A short drive away are Snow Summit and Bear Mountain, both ski areas, and the Big Bear Alpine Zoo. A longer drive leads to Big Bear Lake, a reservoir that is the best known of the area's places.
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- 5,261households
- 31%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 19%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 February, with highs near 46° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 50°. About 59 inches of snow and 20 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Big Bear Lake weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in San Bernardino County
- Yaamava Resort and Casino at San ManuelResort hotels with casinos7,449
- San Bernardino City UnifiedSchool district5,915FTE
- Loma Linda University Medical CenterGeneral hospital5,689FTE
- UPSCouriers and express delivery services4,060
- Empire Workforce SolutionsEmployment agencies3,850
- Fontana UnifiedSchool district3,692FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage3,599
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage3,541
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1,624 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 285,165 people in all across the county; Big Bear City has one of its own. 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
- Inland floodingVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Big Bear City’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very high. 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.
Big Bear City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Big Bear City$381,323
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Big Bear City listings, and the typical home goes pending in 57 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Big Bear City25.78%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Big Bear City57
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Big Bear City298
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Big Bear City45
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Big Bear City$395,211
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Big Bear City98.27%
Zip codes with a Big Bear City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Big Bear City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.