Fruita, Colorado.
Typical home $480,708 (+2.5% in a year), asking rent $1,664 (-0.8%). Grand Junction, CO metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,393 (+123%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,562 +2%
- $469,146$480,708 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $90,535 +23%
- $390,172$480,708 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.
- Fruita$2,523
- Colorado$2,777
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Fruita, CO rose 2.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Fruita, CO fell 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Fruita runs $1,526/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,557 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,190 a month against $1,664 rent: a $2,523 mortgage payment, plus $152 property tax and $515 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Fruita
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$3,190
- Renting$1,664
- Mortgage only$2,523
Property tax · $152/mo 0.38% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Mesa County, CO
Insurance & upkeep · $515/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 Fruita, Mesa County, Colorado
Fruita is a city of 13,395 people in Mesa County. Half its households earn more than $87,184 a year and half less, against $73,658 across Mesa County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 80% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Mesa County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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. Fruita is a small city in Mesa County, home to a community where most households own the places they live. Incomes run higher than across the county as a whole, and few residents live below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, while summers turn hot by July, and the climate is dry, with little rain or snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, the building trades and local shops. Among the largest workplaces in Fruita are Family Health West Hospital, King Soopers and the National Park Service. Most people have a fairly short drive to work, and some work from home.
Things to do. Colorado National Monument is a protected area a short drive away, and Serpents Trail, also a short drive off, is a trail for walking. Highline Lake State Park, another short drive away, is a protected area good for a day outdoors. In or beside town, Dinosaur Journey Museum is a museum well suited to a rainy-day visit.
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- 5,273households
- 34%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Mesa County had 66,902 jobs in 2025, 0.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 39° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 60°. About 10 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Fruita weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Fruita
- Family Health West HospitalCritical access hospital344FTE
- Patterson-UTI Drilling CompanyDrilling gas and oil field wells on a contract basis180
- King SoopersSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores100
- National Park ServiceFederal government · Department of the Interior42
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 916 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- LightningVery high
- AvalanchesRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Fruita’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Mesa County and the Grand Junction, CO metro.
Fruita home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Fruita$480,708
- Colorado$529,013
- 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 3 Fruita listings, and the typical home goes pending in 54 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Fruita32.55%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Fruita54
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Fruita157
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Fruita37
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Fruita$460,041
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Fruita address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Fruita — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.