Joshua Tree, California.
Typical home $347,555 (+2.4% in a year), asking rent $2,005 (+13.6%). Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,036 (+131%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,158 +2%
- $339,397$347,555 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $28,474 -8%
- $376,029$347,555 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.
- Joshua Tree$1,824
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Joshua Tree, CA rose 2.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Joshua Tree, CA rose 13.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Joshua Tree runs $394/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,486 in Feb 2023.
That is $2,399 a month against $2,005 rent: a $1,824 mortgage payment, plus $203 property tax and $372 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Joshua Tree
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$2,399
- Renting$2,005
- Mortgage only$1,824
Property tax · $203/mo 0.70% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for San Bernardino County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $372/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 Joshua Tree, San Bernardino County, California
Joshua Tree, in San Bernardino County, had 6,489 people in the 2020 census. 66% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 34% are rented. Unemployment in San Bernardino County was 5.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in San Bernardino County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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. Joshua Tree is a small desert community where most homes are lived in by their owners, and a good share of residents are living below the poverty line. Home values and rents are high for what many households earn here. Winters are mild and cool, with only a trace of snow, while July brings very hot days, and the year is dry overall.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, transport and warehouses, and professional and business services also employing many. Among the largest workplaces in Joshua Tree are Hi-Desert Medical Center, the Hi-Desert Continuing Care Center and the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Morongo Basin station. Commutes are fairly long, and more people work from home than in many places. Across San Bernardino County, unemployment has eased a little over the past year, and the number of jobs has edged up.
Things to do. Desert Christ Park, a museum site, and Burns Piñon Ridge Reserve, a protected area, are both a short drive away. For a longer outing, Sand to Snow National Monument is a protected area a longer drive off, and the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is a zoo a longer drive away too.
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- 2,553households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 23%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 27%work from home
What people in San Bernardino County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. San Bernardino County had 848,961 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 60° and lows near 36°; warmest in July, with highs near 102° and lows near 70°. About 1 inches of snow and 4 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Joshua Tree weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Joshua Tree
- HI - Desert Medical CenterGeneral hospital209FTE
- Hi-desert Continuing Care Center HCCNursingcarefacilities155
- San Bernardino County- Sheriff Morongo Basin76
- Morongo Basin Ambulance AssociationAmbulance services, air or ground34
- Joshua Basin Water DistrictWater supply systems29
- San Bernardino County- Sheriff-29 Palms23
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 662 people in all. Hospitals come 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
- WildfireRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Joshua Tree’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 San Bernardino County and the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
Joshua Tree home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Joshua Tree$347,555
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Joshua Tree listings — the market is heating up.
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.
- Joshua Tree18.79%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Joshua Tree157
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Joshua Tree33
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Joshua Tree address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Joshua Tree — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.