Los Olivos, California.
Typical home $1,740,592 (+4.8% in a year). Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$5,188 (+131%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $80,190 +5%
- $1,660,402$1,740,592 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $306,047 +21%
- $1,434,545$1,740,592 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 Olivos$9,136
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Los Olivos, CA rose 4.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Los Olivos, Santa Barbara County, California
Los Olivos, in Santa Barbara County, had 1,202 people in the 2020 census. 88% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 12% are rented. Unemployment in Santa Barbara County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Santa Barbara County work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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 Olivos is a small community in Santa Barbara County where nearly everyone owns the home they live in, far more than is typical across the county. Typical home values are very high, and fewer households live below the poverty line than you might expect. Winters are mild, with the coldest days in December still cool rather than freezing, summers turn hot by August, and snow is rare. Rain falls in modest amounts over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and shops. Across Santa Barbara County, some of the largest workplaces are the University of California-Santa Barbara, Freshway Farms and Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. Unemployment across the county is a little lower than a year ago, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Neverland Ranch is a park a short drive away, as are Lake Cahuma, a reservoir, and Nojoqui Falls, a waterfall. For a longer outing, Los Padres National Forest is a large protected area, and El Capitán State Beach offers time by the ocean.
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- 490households
- 3%below the poverty line
What people in Santa Barbara County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Santa Barbara County had 214,947 jobs in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 67° and lows near 33°; warmest in August, with highs near 93° and lows near 48°. About 21 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cachuma Lake weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Santa Barbara County
- University of California-Santa BarbaraUniversity or college5,215
- Freshway FarmsAgriculture production2,673
- Santa Barbara Cottage HospitalGeneral hospital2,666FTE
- Marian Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,857FTE
- Santa Maria-Bonita SchoolsSchool district1,727FTE
- Eat Sweet FarmsBerries, fresh, merchant wholesalers1,716
- Santa Barbara UnifiedSchool district1,386FTE
- Berry Valley FarmsStrawberry farming1,323
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 390 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 67,254 people in all across the county; Los Olivos has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- LandslidesVery high
- DroughtVery high
- WildfireVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Los Olivos’ census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Santa Barbara County and the Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA metro.
Los Olivos home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Los Olivos$1,740,592
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Los Olivos6
Zip codes with a Los Olivos address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Los Olivos — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.