Keene, California.
Typical home $647,865 (+2.6% in a year). Bakersfield, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,720 (+102%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,436 +3%
- $631,429$647,865 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $76,384 +13%
- $571,481$647,865 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.
- Keene$3,400
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 28 years.
Typical home values in Keene, CA rose 2.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Keene, Kern County, California
Keene, in Kern County, had 469 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Kern County was 8.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Kern County work in schools and health care, then farming.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Keene is a very small community in Kern County, home to only a small number of people. Homes here are valued well above what is typical for the county, and none of the residents fall below the poverty line. Winters are cool, with chilly nights in December, and summers turn hot by August. Rain and melted snow add up to a dry year overall.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, while others work in farming, forestry and mining, in shops, or in professional and business services. Across Kern County, some of the largest workplaces are Kern High Schools, Bakersfield City Schools and Amazon. Unemployment across the county is a little lower than a year ago, though the county has slightly fewer jobs than the year before.
Things to do. The Cesar E. Chavez National Monument, a protected area tied to the farm labor leader's life and work, is a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to Fort Tejon, a museum on a historic site, and to Lake Ming, a lake for time on the water. Kevin Harvick's Kern Raceway, a race track, is also a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 0%below the poverty line
What people in Kern County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kern County had 347,044 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 51° and lows near 31°; warmest in August, with highs near 86° and lows near 56°. About 13 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tehachapi Southeast weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kern County
- Sycamore LaborAgriculture production or harvesting crews6,012
- Kern High SchoolsSchool district3,770FTE
- Bakersfield City SchoolsSchool district3,617FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage3,321
- King Grafting Ag serviceFarm labor contractors2,500
- Panama-Buena Vista Union SchoolsSchool district2,490FTE
- Esparza EnterprisesFarm labor contractors2,356
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage2,318
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 631 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 114,076 people in all across the county; Keene has none of its own. 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
- WildfireVery high
- LandslidesRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of KeeneRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherrelatively high in parts of KeeneRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Keene’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 Kern County and the Bakersfield, CA metro.
Keene home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Keene$647,865
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
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.
Zip codes with a Keene address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Keene — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.