Palmdale, California.
Typical home $498,854 (+0.0% in a year), asking rent $2,780 (+2.3%). Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,380 (+111%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $66 +0%
- $498,788$498,854 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $51,103 +11%
- $447,750$498,854 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.
- Palmdale$2,618
- 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 Palmdale, CA rose 0.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Palmdale, CA rose 2.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Palmdale runs $655/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $940 in Oct 2022.
That is $3,435 a month against $2,780 rent: a $2,618 mortgage payment, plus $283 property tax and $534 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Palmdale
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$3,435
- Renting$2,780
- Mortgage only$2,618
Property tax · $283/mo 0.68% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Los Angeles County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $534/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 Palmdale, Los Angeles County, California
Palmdale is a city of 169,450 people in Los Angeles County. Half its households earn more than $81,770 a year and half less, against $90,112 across Los Angeles County; 16% of its people live below the poverty line. 66% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 34% are rented. Unemployment in Palmdale was 5.7% in August 2026, and Los Angeles County had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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. Palmdale is a large city in the high desert of Los Angeles County, with a young population compared with much of the country. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though incomes run below the county's and a good share of residents live below the poverty line. Winters are cool and nights can get cold, summers are hot, and snow is rare. The year is dry, with very little rain.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, retail, and professional and business services also employing a lot of people. Some of the largest workplaces in the city are aircraft makers such as Northrop Grumman Systems and Lockheed Martin's Palmdale campus, along with Palmdale Regional Medical Center. Commutes tend to be long, and unemployment has eased over the past year.
Things to do. In or beside town, Lake Palmdale offers a lake to visit, and Joe Davies Heritage Airpark is a museum with an aviation theme that suits the area's aircraft history. A short drive away, the Western Hotel is a museum of local history. For a longer outing, Angeles National Forest is a protected area of mountains and trails, and Vasquez Rocks is a park known for its dramatic rock formations.
Report a mistake
- 46,373households
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 40 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Los Angeles County had 4,525,460 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 58° and lows near 34°; warmest in July, with highs near 98° and lows near 68°. About 7 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Palmdale weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Palmdale
- Northrop Grumman SystemsAircraft manufacturing5,616
- Lockheed Martin Corporation Palmdale Campus (1513)3,892
- Palmdale Regional Medical CenterGeneral hospital870FTE
- General Atomics - Gray ButteAircraft manufacturing546
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters449
- Federal Aviation AdministrationFederal government · Department of Transportation437
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters413
- TargetDiscount department stores262
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 58 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 16,525 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- AvalanchesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Palmdale’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 Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA metro.
Palmdale home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Palmdale$498,854
- 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 Palmdale listings, and the typical home goes pending in 35 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Palmdale24.17%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Palmdale35
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Palmdale614
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Palmdale155
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Palmdale$497,135
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Palmdale99.68%
Zip codes with a Palmdale address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Palmdale — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Palmdale
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 93550 | Palmdale | 80,645 | $2,406 | $447,173 |
| 93551 | Palmdale | 54,360 | $3,242 | $588,779 |
| 93552 | Palmdale | 42,639 | $3,080 | $493,051 |
| 93591 | Palmdale | 7,051 | — | $382,937 |