Los Banos, California.
Typical home $456,554 (-1.3% in a year), asking rent $2,354 (+2.0%). Merced, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,139 (+91%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $6,129 -1%
- $462,683$456,554 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $25,192 +6%
- $431,362$456,554 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.
- Los Banos$2,396
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 61 years.
Typical home values in Los Banos, CA fell 1.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Los Banos, CA rose 2.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Los Banos runs $787/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,250 in Oct 2022.
That is $3,141 a month against $2,354 rent: a $2,396 mortgage payment, plus $256 property tax and $489 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Los Banos
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$3,141
- Renting$2,354
- Mortgage only$2,396
Property tax · $256/mo 0.67% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Merced County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $489/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 Los Banos, Merced County, California
Los Banos is a city of 45,532 people in Merced County. Half its households earn more than $68,171 a year and half less, against $65,510 across Merced County; 17% of its people live below the poverty line. 60% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 40% are rented. Unemployment in Los Banos was 9.1% in August 2026, and Merced County had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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. Los Banos is a city in Merced County with a young population, younger than in most of the country. Household incomes run a little above the county's, though a fair number of residents live below the poverty line, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cool and rarely frosty enough for snow, while summers are hot and the year brings very little rain.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, the building trades, shops, and professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in town are Los Banos Unified, Memorial Hospital - Los Banos and Walmart. Unemployment is high compared with much of the country and has barely changed from a year ago, and commutes are long, with few people working from home.
Things to do. The Los Banos Wildlife Area and San Luis National Wildlife Refuge are protected areas a short drive away, and San Luis Creek, also a short drive, is a river. San Luis Reservoir is the best known of the nearby places, though it is a longer drive away.
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- 13,403households
- 12%of adults have a degree
- 17%below the poverty line
- 55 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Merced County had 85,663 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 39°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 64°. About 9 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Los Banos weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Los Banos
- Los Banos UnifiedSchool district985FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters345
- Memorial Hospital - Los BanosGeneral hospital218FTE
- Kagome USACanning fruits and vegetables198
- TargetDiscount department stores183
- The Morning Star CompanyFruit, machine harvesting127
- Franciscan Hospitaller Sisters of the Immaculate ConceptionHomes for the elderly with nursing care94
- Central California Irrigation DistrictIrrigation districts, nonoperating77
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 12 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,731 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals 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
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of Los BanosRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Los Banos’ 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 Merced County and the Merced, CA metro.
Los Banos home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Los Banos$456,554
- 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 5 Los Banos listings, and the typical home goes pending in 33 days — 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.
- Los Banos21.01%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Los Banos33
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Los Banos115
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Los Banos34
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Los Banos$466,976
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Los Banos99.70%
Zip codes with a Los Banos address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Los Banos — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.