Palm Desert, California.
Typical home $538,400 (-1.3% in a year), asking rent $2,749 (+4.1%). Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,465 (+108%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $6,919 -1%
- $545,320$538,400 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $54,513 +11%
- $483,887$538,400 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.
- Palm Desert$2,826
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 32 years.
Typical home values in Palm Desert, CA fell 1.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Palm Desert, CA rose 4.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Palm Desert runs $1,003/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,587 in Oct 2022.
That is $3,752 a month against $2,749 rent: a $2,826 mortgage payment, plus $350 property tax and $576 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Palm Desert
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$3,752
- Renting$2,749
- Mortgage only$2,826
Property tax · $350/mo 0.78% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Riverside County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $576/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 Palm Desert, Riverside County, California
Palm Desert is a city of 51,163 people in Riverside County. Half its households earn more than $77,513 a year and half less, against $93,074 across Riverside County; 11% of its people live below the poverty line. 65% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 35% are rented. Unemployment in Palm Desert was 8.7% in August 2026, and Riverside County had 0.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in restaurants and hotels, then schools and health care.
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. Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County whose residents are older than in most American towns. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and incomes run below the county's. Winters are mild and summers are very hot, with little or no snow and very little rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, in schools, hospitals and social care, or in professional and business services. Some of the larger workplaces in town are the Coachella Valley Water District, Costco Wholesale and Indian Ridge Country Club. Commutes are fairly short, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. In or beside town, the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is a zoo and garden, and the McCallum Theatre is a theatre for live performances. A short drive away, the Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area for walking and watching wildlife. The Palm Springs Art Museum is a longer drive away.
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- 24,690households
- 41%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Riverside County had 846,070 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 69° and lows near 45°; warmest in July, with highs near 106° and lows near 82°. About 3 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Indio Fire Station weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Palm Desert
- Coachella Valley Water DistrictWater treatment and distribution545
- SunriseGolf and country clubs468
- Indian Ridge Country ClubCountry clubs388
- BIGHORN Golf ClubMembership associations, civic or social361
- Costco WholesaleWholesale grocer348
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters337
- Marriott Vacations WorlwideHotels with golf courses, tennis courts, and/or other health spa facilities275
- Willow Springs Healthcare CenterSkilled nursing facilities205
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 42 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,525 people in all. 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
- 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 Palm Desert’s 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 Riverside County and the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
Palm Desert home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Palm Desert$538,400
- 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 6 Palm Desert listings, and the typical home goes pending in 65 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.
- Palm Desert17.34%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Palm Desert65
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Palm Desert743
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Palm Desert133
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Palm Desert$534,073
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Palm Desert96.04%
Zip codes with a Palm Desert address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Palm Desert — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Palm Desert
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 92260 | Palm Desert | 30,523 | $2,560 | $573,611 |
| 92211 | Palm Desert | 28,092 | $2,890 | $518,194 |