Chaparral, New Mexico.
Typical home $216,788 (-1.7% in a year). Las Cruces, NM metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$628 (+123%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,765 -2%
- $220,552$216,788 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $38,352 +21%
- $178,435$216,788 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.
- Chaparral$1,138
- New Mexico$1,658
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Chaparral, NM fell 1.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Chaparral, Doña Ana County, New Mexico
Chaparral, in Doña Ana County, had 16,551 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $46,017 a year and half less, against $56,848 across Doña Ana County; 27% of its people live below the poverty line. 69% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 31% are rented. Unemployment in Doña Ana County was 5.3% in August 2026, and the county had 3.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Chaparral is a community in Doña Ana County whose residents are younger than in most American places, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run below the county's, and a larger share of people live below the poverty line than is typical. Few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are mild and cool rather than cold, summers are hot, and snow is rare. The desert climate is dry, with little rain or melted snow over a year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in the building trades and in manufacturing. Across Doña Ana County, some of the largest workplaces are New Mexico State University, the Las Cruces schools and Gadsden Schools. The typical commute is a long one, and very few people work from home. Unemployment across the county is a little higher than a year ago, even as the number of jobs there has grown.
Things to do. For a day out, the nearest well-known options are in El Paso, a longer drive away. Franklin Mountains State Park is a protected area of desert mountain country, and the El Paso Zoo is a good choice for families. The El Paso Museum of Art is the best known of the museums, and each of these is a longer drive away.
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- 5,060households
- 10%of adults have a degree
- 27%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Doña Ana County had 81,834 jobs in 2025, 3.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 56° and lows near 34°; warmest in June, with highs near 95° and lows near 70°. About 9 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the La Tuna South weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Doña Ana County
- New Mexico State UniversityUniversity or college3,184
- Las Cruces SchoolsSchool district2,336FTE
- Gadsden SchoolsSchool district1,745FTE
- Memorial Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,161FTE
- Mountain View REG MED CTRGeneral hospital779FTE
- Stampede Culinary PartnersProcessed meats manufacturing730
- New Mexico State University-Dona AnaTwo-year college632
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters422
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 117 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 19,844 people in all across the county; Chaparral has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Wildfirerelatively high in parts of ChaparralRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Chaparral’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 Doña Ana County and the Las Cruces, NM metro.
Chaparral home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Chaparral$216,788
- New Mexico$315,812
- 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.
- Chaparral16
Zip codes with a Chaparral address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Chaparral — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.