El Cerrito, California.
Typical home $1,122,098 (+3.4% in a year), asking rent $2,551 (+6.0%). San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,482 (+73%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $36,492 +3%
- $1,085,606$1,122,098 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $38,188 -3%
- $1,160,286$1,122,098 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.
- El Cerrito$5,890
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in El Cerrito, CA rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in El Cerrito, CA rose 6.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in El Cerrito runs $5,312/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $6,031 in Oct 2023.
That is $7,863 a month against $2,551 rent: a $5,890 mortgage payment, plus $772 property tax and $1,201 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — El Cerrito
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$7,863
- Renting$2,551
- Mortgage only$5,890
Property tax · $772/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 · $1,201/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 El Cerrito, Contra Costa County, California
El Cerrito is a city of 25,962 people in Contra Costa County. Half its households earn more than $127,876 a year and half less, against $127,229 across Contra Costa County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 59% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 41% are rented. Unemployment in El Cerrito was 4.4% in August 2026, and Contra Costa County had 0.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional 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. El Cerrito is a city in Contra Costa County where most homes are lived in by their owners, though renters make up a real part of the community. Household incomes are close to the county's, and a large majority of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are mild, with the coldest days in December, and summers are warm without being hot, with September the warmest month. Snow is rare, and the rain that falls over the year is modest.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, and in shops, restaurants and hotels. Unemployment has eased compared with a year earlier, though job numbers across the county have barely changed. Among the largest workplaces in town are Trader Joe's, Safeway and Invictus Academy of Richmond District. Commutes run on the long side, and many residents work from home.
Things to do. Coit Tower, a well-known tourist attraction in San Francisco, is a short drive away, as is Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, now a museum. A longer drive brings you to Golden Gate Park, a large garden, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. These make for easy day trips across the bay.
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- 10,831households
- 68%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 33 mintypical commute
- 32%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 December, with highs near 59° and lows near 43°; warmest in September, with highs near 76° and lows near 54°. About 26 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Berkeley weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in El Cerrito
- Trader Joe's 0108 El CerritoGrocery store147
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores144
- Invictus Academy of Richmond DistrictSchool district38FTE
- El Cerrito Carrier AnnexMail and parcel delivery36
- Summit Public School K2 DistrictSchool district34FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 327 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); 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
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in El Cerrito’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 Contra Costa County and the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
El Cerrito home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- El Cerrito$1,122,098
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 9 El Cerrito listings — 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.
- El Cerrito11.23%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- El Cerrito39
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- El Cerrito18
Zip codes with a El Cerrito address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls El Cerrito — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.