Discovery Bay, California.
Typical home $775,031 (-0.9% in a year), asking rent $3,570 (-1.6%). San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,842 (+83%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $7,032 -1%
- $782,062$775,031 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $28,008 -3%
- $803,039$775,031 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.
- Discovery Bay$4,068
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Discovery Bay, CA fell 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Discovery Bay, CA fell 1.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Discovery Bay runs $1,861/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,315 in Mar 2025.
That is $5,431 a month against $3,570 rent: a $4,068 mortgage payment, plus $533 property tax and $830 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Discovery Bay
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$5,431
- Renting$3,570
- Mortgage only$4,068
Property tax · $533/mo 0.83% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Contra Costa County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $830/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 Discovery Bay, Contra Costa County, California
Discovery Bay, in Contra Costa County, had 15,358 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $147,117 a year and half less, against $127,229 across Contra Costa County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 90% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 10% are rented. Unemployment in Contra Costa County was 5.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in professional services, then schools and health care.
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. Discovery Bay is a community in Contra Costa County where nearly everyone owns the home they live in, and renters are a small minority. Residents are older than in much of the country, and household incomes run well above the county's, with a smaller share of people living below the poverty line than you might expect. Winters are mild, with little or no snow and only modest rain, while summers turn hot, particularly in July.
Work. Residents work mostly in professional and business services, in schools, hospitals and social care, in the building trades, and in shops. Across Contra Costa County, some of the largest workplaces are West Contra Costa Unified, Contra Costa Regional Medical Center and San Ramon Valley Unified. The typical commute is long, and a good number of people work from home instead.
Things to do. Water is the main draw here. Indian Slough runs in or beside town, and Clifton Court Forebay, a reservoir, is a short drive away. For a longer outing, the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River are both a longer drive away, as is the John Muir National Historic Site, a museum honoring the naturalist.
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- 5,421households
- 33%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 44 mintypical commute
- 22%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Contra Costa County had 374,448 jobs in 2025, 0.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 40°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 62°. About 12 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tracy Pumping Plt weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Contra Costa County
- West Contra Costa UnifiedSchool district2,751FTE
- Contra Costa Regional Medical CenterGeneral hospital2,584FTE
- San Ramon Valley UnifiedSchool district2,519FTE
- 24 Hour Home CareSenior citizens centers2,496
- Mt. Diablo UnifiedSchool district2,466FTE
- John Muir Medical Center - WCGeneral hospital2,143FTE
- Antioch UnifiedSchool district1,552FTE
- JT Thorpe and SonRefractory fireproofing1,523
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 573 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 81,677 people in all across the county; Discovery Bay has two 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
- Droughtrelatively high in parts of Discovery BayRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Discovery Bay’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively 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 Contra Costa County and the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
Discovery Bay home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Discovery Bay$775,031
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Discovery Bay listings, and the typical home goes pending in 63 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.
- Discovery Bay29.69%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Discovery Bay63
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Discovery Bay114
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Discovery Bay23
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Discovery Bay address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Discovery Bay — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.