Fairfax, California.
Typical home $1,226,010 (+5.3% in a year), asking rent $3,150 . San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,865 (+80%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $62,198 +5%
- $1,163,812$1,226,010 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $56,221 +5%
- $1,169,789$1,226,010 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.
- Fairfax$6,435
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 74 years.
Typical home values in Fairfax, CA rose 5.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Fairfax, Marin County, California
Fairfax is a town of 7,605 people in Marin County. Half its households earn more than $141,653 a year and half less, against $149,091 across Marin County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 69% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 31% are rented. Unemployment in Marin County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% fewer 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 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Fairfax is a small town in Marin County whose residents are older than in much of the country, with a large share holding a four-year degree. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and typical home values and rents sit high, though household incomes run a little below the county's. Winters are cool and mild, summers are warm, snow is rare, and a fair amount of rain falls over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in professional and business services, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in banking, insurance and property. Within the town, some of the largest workplaces are Good Earth Natural Foods, Sevita and the Ross Valley Charter District. A good many people work from home, and those who commute face a fairly long trip, while the county has seen slightly fewer jobs than a year earlier.
Things to do. Muir Woods National Monument, a protected area, is a short drive away and is the closest of the well-known places nearby. A longer drive brings you to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, a large garden, and to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Both make a full day out for anyone willing to make the trip.
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- 3,265households
- 70%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 38%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Marin County had 110,071 jobs in 2025, 0.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 57° and lows near 43°; warmest in August, with highs near 81° and lows near 56°. About 34 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the San Rafael Civic Ctr weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Fairfax
- Good Earth Natural FoodsRetail grocery246
- SevitaOther residential care facilities37
- Ross Valley Charter DistrictSchool district22FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 283 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
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Fairfax’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 Marin County and the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
Fairfax home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Fairfax$1,226,010
- 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.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Fairfax 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.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Fairfax16
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Fairfax7
Zip codes with a Fairfax address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Fairfax — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.