Big Bear Lake, California.
Typical home $533,648 (-2.8% in a year), asking rent $1,959 (+4.8%). Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,409 (+101%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $15,302 -3%
- $548,950$533,648 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $30,429 -5%
- $564,077$533,648 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 Lake$2,801
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Big Bear Lake, CA fell 2.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Big Bear Lake, CA rose 4.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Big Bear Lake runs $1,725/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,290 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,684 a month against $1,959 rent: a $2,801 mortgage payment, plus $312 property tax and $571 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Big Bear Lake
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$3,684
- Renting$1,959
- Mortgage only$2,801
Property tax · $312/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 · $571/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 Lake, San Bernardino County, California
Big Bear Lake is a city of 5,046 people in San Bernardino County. Half its households earn more than $76,250 a year and half less, against $85,478 across San Bernardino County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 65% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 35% 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 professional services, 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 Lake is a small mountain city where most homes are lived in by their owners, and incomes run below the county's. Winters are cold, with highs that stay well below what most of the country sees, and a good deal of snow falls each year. Summers are warm without being hot, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in professional and business services, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, in schools, hospitals and social care, and in shops. Among the largest workplaces in town are Bear Valley Unified, Bear Valley Community Hospital and Vons. A good share of people work from home, and a typical commute is fairly short.
Things to do. Bear Mountain and Snow Summit, both ski areas, sit in or beside town, with Snow Valley Mountain Resort, another ski area, a short drive away. The Big Bear Alpine Zoo is also in or beside town, and Baldwin Lake is a short drive away. The town takes its name from the reservoir of Big Bear Lake, which is a short drive away as well.
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- 2,308households
- 34%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 21%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, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Big Bear Lake
- Bear Valley UnifiedSchool district204FTE
- Bear Valley Community HospitalCritical access hospital159FTE
- VonsSupermarkets and other grocery stores114
- Compass Group98
- Hilton Grand Vacation Inc.50
- Wyndham Vacation OwnershipHotels and motels47
- San Bernardino County- Sheriff Big Bear45
- American States Water CompanyElectric power gerneration, transmission and distribution44
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 455 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
- WildfireRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Big Bear Lake’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.
Big Bear Lake 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 Lake$533,648
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Big Bear Lake listings, and the typical home goes pending in 68 days — the market is heating up.
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 Lake20.70%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Big Bear Lake68
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Big Bear Lake503
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Big Bear Lake73
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Big Bear Lake$543,078
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Big Bear Lake96.62%
Zip codes with a Big Bear Lake address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Big Bear Lake — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.