Mountain Ranch, California.
Typical home $335,096 (-2.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$622 (+55%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $9,493 -3%
- $344,589$335,096 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $42,688 -11%
- $377,784$335,096 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.
- Mountain Ranch$1,759
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Mountain Ranch, CA fell 2.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Mountain Ranch, Calaveras County, California
Mountain Ranch, in Calaveras County, had 223 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Calaveras County was 6.3% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Calaveras County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Mountain Ranch is a very small community in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Calaveras County, home to far fewer people than most places that have a name on the map. Residents are older than in most of the country, and the typical household here lives in a home worth well above what many older owners paid for theirs. Winters are cold, with daytime highs staying chilly and nights dropping below freezing, and a good deal of snow falls over the year, while summers are warm and the town gets a lot of rain and melted snow in total.
Work. Many people who live here work in schools, hospitals and social care, the building trades, professional and business services, or local shops. Across Calaveras County, some of the largest workplaces are CAL Fire, Calaveras Unified school district and Mark Twain Medical Center. Unemployment across the county is a little higher than it was a year ago, and the county has lost a small share of its jobs over the past year.
Things to do. California Caverns, a cave attraction, is in or beside town, and Mercer Caverns, another cave attraction, is a short drive away. For a longer outing, Calaveras Big Trees State Park is a protected area of big trees a longer drive away, and New Melones Lake, a large reservoir, is also a longer drive away.
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What people in Calaveras County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Calaveras County had 10,140 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 44° and lows near 30°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 56°. About 105 inches of snow and 56 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Calaveras Big Trees weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Calaveras County
- CAL FireCal fire664
- ACRT PacificForestry services333
- Calaveras UnifiedSchool district257FTE
- Mark Twain Medical CenterCritical access hospital219FTE
- Pride On PointDriving services214
- UPSCouriers and express delivery services113
- Calaveras County Office of Education SchoolsSchool district95FTE
- Bret Harte Union High SchoolsSchool district91FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,121 people in all across the county; Mountain Ranch has none of its own. 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
- WildfireVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Mountain Ranch’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 Calaveras County.
Mountain Ranch home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mountain Ranch$335,096
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Mountain Ranch listings — 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.
- Mountain Ranch21.43%
- United States25.56%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Mountain Ranch18
Zip codes with a Mountain Ranch address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mountain Ranch — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.