Madera, California.
Typical home $423,208 (+2.6% in a year), asking rent $2,162 (+2.5%). Madera, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,230 (+124%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,530 +3%
- $412,678$423,208 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $80,462 +23%
- $342,747$423,208 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.
- Madera$2,221
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Madera, CA rose 2.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Madera, CA rose 2.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Madera runs $760/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $875 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,922 a month against $2,162 rent: a $2,221 mortgage payment, plus $247 property tax and $453 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Madera
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$2,922
- Renting$2,162
- Mortgage only$2,221
Property tax · $247/mo 0.70% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Madera County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $453/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 Madera, Madera County, California
Madera is a city of 66,224 people in Madera County. Half its households earn more than $63,933 a year and half less, against $76,627 across Madera County; 26% of its people live below the poverty line. 55% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 45% are rented. Unemployment in Madera was 7.3% in August 2026, and Madera County had 2.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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. Madera is a city in California's Central Valley, and its residents are younger than in most American communities. Household incomes run below the county's, and a larger share of people live below the poverty line than is typical. Homes are lived in by their owners more often than not, though typical home values and rents are high compared with local incomes. Few adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with farming, manufacturing and shops also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Madera are Madera Unified, the County of Madera and Camarena Health. Unemployment is roughly where it stood a year earlier, and the county has added a few more jobs over the past year. The typical commute is a moderate one, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Lake Corcoran is the best known of the nearby places, a lake that is a longer drive away. The Fresno Chaffee Zoo and Forestiere Underground Gardens, a museum, are also a longer drive from town. Winters are cool and mild by national standards, summers are hot, and rain and snow together add up to little over the year.
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- 17,526households
- 11%of adults have a degree
- 26%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Madera County had 58,077 jobs in 2025, 2.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 56° and lows near 38°; warmest in July, with highs near 98° and lows near 63°. About 11 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Madera Municipal Airport weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Madera
- Madera UnifiedSchool district2,190FTE
- County of MaderaGeneral public administration1,400
- Camarena HealthWalk-in physicians' offices639
- SPAN Construction and EngineeringWarehouse construction559
- City of MaderaCity and town councils364
- WalmartDiscount department stores288
- Premier Ag ServicesAgricultural259
- EvapcoAir-conditioning and warm air heating combination units manufacturing248
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 36 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,894 people in all. 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
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Droughtrelatively high in parts of MaderaRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of MaderaRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Madera’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 Madera County and the Madera, CA metro.
Madera home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Madera$423,208
- 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 Madera listings, and the typical home goes pending in 32 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.
- Madera23.25%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Madera32
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Madera316
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Madera79
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Madera$434,995
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Madera99.54%
Zip codes with a Madera address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Madera — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Madera
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 93638 | Madera | 50,571 | $1,847 | $361,996 |
| 93637 | Madera | 43,785 | $1,972 | $402,147 |
| 93636 | Madera | 15,294 | $2,751 | $522,603 |