Martinez, California.
Typical home $749,729 (-1.3% in a year), asking rent $2,509 (+1.8%). San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,699 (+76%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $9,817 -1%
- $759,547$749,729 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $16,047 -2%
- $765,777$749,729 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.
- Martinez$3,935
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Martinez, CA fell 1.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Martinez, CA rose 1.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Martinez runs $2,744/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $3,345 in May 2024.
That is $5,254 a month against $2,509 rent: a $3,935 mortgage payment, plus $516 property tax and $803 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Martinez
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$5,254
- Renting$2,509
- Mortgage only$3,935
Property tax · $516/mo 0.83% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Contra Costa County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $803/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 Martinez, Contra Costa County, California
Martinez is a city of 37,287 people in Contra Costa County. Half its households earn more than $127,355 a year and half less, against $127,229 across Contra Costa County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 71% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 29% are rented. Unemployment in Martinez was 4.8% in August 2026, and Contra Costa County had 0.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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. Martinez is a city where most homes are lived in by their owners, and incomes sit about level with the county's. Residents tend to be somewhat older than the typical American, and a good share of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cool and mild, with little or no snow, and summers are warm; rain is modest and comes mostly in the cooler months.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in shops and in the building trades. Among the largest workplaces in Martinez are Contra Costa Regional Medical Center, Martinez Unified and the Veterans Health Administration. A fair number of people work from home, and the typical commute is a moderate one.
Things to do. The John Muir National Historic Site, a museum, is in or beside town. A longer drive away are the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River, and San Francisco's attractions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Golden Gate Park, a garden.
Report a mistake
- 14,723households
- 47%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 22%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Contra Costa County had 374,448 jobs in 2025, 0.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 35°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 51°. About 19 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Martinez Wtp weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Martinez
- Contra Costa Regional Medical CenterGeneral hospital2,584FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs942
- Contra Costa ElectricElectrical contractors568
- Martinez UnifiedSchool district333FTE
- WalmartDiscount department stores204
- Legacy Post Acute CareSkilled nursing facilities174
- Baja Construction CoIronworker105
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores101
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 24 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,756 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) 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
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Coastal floodingRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Martinez’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 Contra Costa County and the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
Martinez home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Martinez$749,729
- 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 Martinez listings, and the typical home goes pending in 17 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.
- Martinez25.70%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Martinez17
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Martinez116
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Martinez43
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Martinez$752,272
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Martinez100.61%
Zip codes with a Martinez address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Martinez — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.