Calpine, California.
Typical home $369,693 (+0.3% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$981 (+102%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,176 +0%
- $368,517$369,693 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $24,569 +7%
- $345,124$369,693 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.
- Calpine$1,940
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 50 years.
Typical home values in Calpine, CA rose 0.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Calpine, Sierra County, California
Calpine, in Sierra County, had 223 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Sierra County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Calpine is a very small community in Sierra County, California, in the Sierra Nevada. It is the kind of place where people tend to know one another, and homes here are valued well within reach of many buyers compared with much of California.
Work. Work close to home is limited, as it is across much of rural Sierra County, where jobs have held roughly steady from one year to the next. Among the county's largest workplaces are the Sierra-Plumas Joint Unified school district and the Forest Service.
Things to do. Tahoe National Forest, a protected area of woods and trails, is a short drive away, as is the Western Pacific Railroad Museum. A longer drive brings you to Donner Lake, a reservoir, and to Sugar Bowl Ski Resort. Winters are cold and snowy, so the ski area and forest are best matched to the season.
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Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 42° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 45°. About 38 inches of snow and 23 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Portola weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sierra County
- Sierra-Plumas Joint UnifiedSchool district63FTE
- Forest ServiceFederal government · Department of Agriculture32
School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- LightningVery high
- WildfireVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- LandslidesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Calpine’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 Sierra County.
Calpine home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Calpine$369,693
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Calpine7
Zip codes with a Calpine address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Calpine — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.