Dos Palos, California.
Typical home $357,537 (+0.1% in a year). Merced, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$981 (+110%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $327 +0%
- $357,210$357,537 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $43,270 +14%
- $314,267$357,537 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.
- Dos Palos$1,877
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 27 years.
Typical home values in Dos Palos, CA rose 0.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Dos Palos, Merced County, California
Dos Palos is a city of 5,798 people in Merced County. Unemployment in Merced County was 8.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then other services.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Dos Palos is a small farming city in the San Joaquin Valley, in Merced County. Its residents are younger than in many American towns, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Typical home values run well above what the county's household incomes would suggest, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with farming, forestry and mining, shops and other services close behind. The commute is on the long side, and few people work from home. Across Merced County, the largest workplaces include Merced Union High Schools, Mercy Medical Center Merced and Hilmar Cheese Company. Unemployment across the county is a little lower than a year ago, and the number of jobs there has edged up.
Things to do. The Fresno River is a short drive away, and it is the closest of the nearby outdoor places. A longer drive brings you to Lake Corcoran, a lake, and to Merced National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area. Winters are mild and cool, summers are hot, snow is rare, and the year is dry, so most of these places can be visited in any season.
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- 2,099households
- 11%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Merced County had 85,663 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 39°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 64°. About 9 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Los Banos weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Merced County
- Merced CountyCommunity health programs administration2,176
- University of California-MercedUniversity or college1,863
- Merced Union High SchoolsSchool district1,108FTE
- Mercy Medical Center MercedGeneral hospital1,100FTE
- Merced City Elementary SchoolsSchool district1,037FTE
- Hilmar Cheese CompanyDips, cheese based, manufacturing999
- Los Banos UnifiedSchool district985FTE
- Merced County Office of Education SchoolsSchool district952FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 147 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 21,213 people in all across the county; Dos Palos 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
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Droughtrelatively high in parts of Dos PalosRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Dos Palos’ 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 Merced County and the Merced, CA metro.
Dos Palos home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dos Palos$357,537
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
- Dos Palos14
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Dos Palos address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dos Palos — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.