Palermo, California.
Typical home $240,480 (-3.0% in a year). Chico, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$416 (+49%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $7,503 -3%
- $247,983$240,480 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $28,674 -11%
- $269,154$240,480 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.
- Palermo$1,262
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Palermo, CA fell 3.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Palermo, Butte County, California
Palermo, in Butte County, had 5,555 people in the 2020 census. 69% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 31% are rented. Unemployment in Butte County was 6.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Palermo is a small community in Butte County where most homes are lived in by their owners, a higher share than in many places. Incomes sit below the county's, and poverty is more common here than is typical. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and a modest number work from home.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in government. Across Butte County, some of the largest workplaces are Enloe Medical Center, California State University-Chico and Oroville Hospital. Unemployment in the county is a little lower than a year ago, though the number of jobs has slipped slightly.
Things to do. Lake Oroville, a reservoir, and Lake Oroville State Recreation Area, a protected area around it, are both a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to Feather Falls, a waterfall, and to Bidwell Park, a park. Winters are cool and mild, with December the coldest month, while summers are hot and July is the warmest, and the year brings a moderate amount of rain and melted snow.
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- 2,066households
- 12%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Butte County had 78,544 jobs in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 58° and lows near 40°; warmest in July, with highs near 97° and lows near 63°. About 31 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Oroville weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Butte County
- Enloe Medical CenterGeneral hospital3,095FTE
- California State University-ChicoUniversity or college1,858
- Chico UnifiedSchool district1,354FTE
- Oroville HospitalGeneral hospital1,327FTE
- Butte CollegeTwo-year college1,054
- CAL FireCal fire507
- Sierra Nevada Brewing CompanyBreweries459
- Lundberg Family FarmsRice farming, field and seed production384
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 131 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 18,366 people in all across the county; Palermo has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- WildfireRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Palermo’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 Butte County and the Chico, CA metro.
Palermo home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Palermo$240,480
- 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.
Zip codes with a Palermo address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Palermo — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.