Lancaster, California.
Typical home $460,943 (-0.7% in a year), asking rent $2,460 (+0.9%). Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,268 (+110%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,105 -1%
- $464,048$460,943 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $40,930 +10%
- $420,013$460,943 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.
- Lancaster$2,419
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 37 years.
Typical home values in Lancaster, CA fell 0.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Lancaster, CA rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Lancaster runs $714/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $909 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,174 a month against $2,460 rent: a $2,419 mortgage payment, plus $261 property tax and $493 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Lancaster
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$3,174
- Renting$2,460
- Mortgage only$2,419
Property tax · $261/mo 0.68% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Los Angeles County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $493/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 Lancaster, Los Angeles County, California
Lancaster is a city of 173,516 people in Los Angeles County. Half its households earn more than $81,511 a year and half less, against $90,112 across Los Angeles County; 16% of its people live below the poverty line. 60% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 40% are rented. Unemployment in Lancaster was 6.6% in August 2026, and Los Angeles County had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most residents 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. Lancaster is a large city in Los Angeles County, and its residents are younger than in much of the country. Incomes run below the county's, and more households live below the poverty line than most people would expect in a city this size. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and relatively few adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, professional and business services, and manufacturing also employing a good share. Antelope Valley Hospital, Lancaster Elementary Schools and the Antelope Valley Community College District are among the largest workplaces in town. Unemployment has eased over the past year, and the daily commute to work is a fairly long one.
Things to do. In or beside town, the Western Hotel and the Museum of Art and History are both museums, and Joe Davies Heritage Airpark, also a museum, is a short drive away. For open country, the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve is a protected area a longer drive away. Winters are cool and summers are hot and dry, with very little rain or snow through the year.
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- 52,374households
- 20%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Los Angeles County had 4,525,460 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 58° and lows near 30°; warmest in August, with highs near 98° and lows near 65°. About 7 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lancaster Wm J Fox Field weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lancaster
- Antelope Valley HospitalGeneral hospital2,285FTE
- Lancaster Elementary SchoolsSchool district1,786FTE
- Antelope Valley Community College DistrictUniversity or college1,091
- Desert Haven EnterprisesHabilitation job counseling and training, vocational655
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters455
- Granite IndustrialPavement, highway, road, street, bridge or airport runway, construction412
- Lancaster SNF HealthcareSkilled nursing facilities378
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters371
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 57 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,794 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Inland floodingRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lancaster’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 Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
Lancaster home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lancaster$460,943
- 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 4 Lancaster listings, and the typical home goes pending in 30 days — 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.
- Lancaster25.61%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Lancaster30
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lancaster772
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lancaster199
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Lancaster$464,085
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Lancaster100.04%
Zip codes with a Lancaster address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lancaster — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Lancaster
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 93535 | Lancaster | 79,409 | $2,681 | $425,071 |
| 93536 | Lancaster | 73,412 | $2,687 | $533,090 |
| 93534 | Lancaster | 41,430 | $1,916 | $412,593 |