Planada, California.
Typical home $291,896 (+1.7% in a year). Merced, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$832 (+119%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,906 +2%
- $286,990$291,896 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $37,698 +15%
- $254,198$291,896 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.
- Planada$1,532
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 25 years.
Typical home values in Planada, CA rose 1.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Planada, Merced County, California
Planada, in Merced County, had 4,164 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Merced County was 8.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Merced County work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Planada is a small community in Merced County, in California's Central Valley. Few adults here hold a four-year degree, and a larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is typical across the country. Winters are cool, with January the coldest month, and summers are hot, with July the warmest and afternoons that turn very hot. Rain and melted snow add up to a fairly dry year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with many more in shops, farming and manufacturing. Across Merced County, the largest workplaces include the University of California-Merced, Mercy Medical Center Merced and Hilmar Cheese Company. Unemployment across the county is slightly lower than a year ago, and the county has added a few more jobs. Few people work from home, and the typical commute is a fairly short drive.
Things to do. Mariposa Creek, a river, and Lake Yosemite, a lake, are both a short drive away, and the Merced Theatre is nearby too. For a longer outing, Castle Air Museum is a longer drive away, as is the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area.
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- 1,126households
- 2%of adults have a degree
- 21%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Merced County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Merced County had 85,663 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 37°; warmest in July, with highs near 96° and lows near 62°. About 12 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Merced Municipal Airport weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Merced County
- Merced CountyCommunity health programs administration2,176
- University of California-MercedUniversity or college1,863
- Merced Union High SchoolsSchool district1,108FTE
- Mercy Medical Center MercedGeneral hospital1,100FTE
- Merced City Elementary SchoolsSchool district1,037FTE
- Hilmar Cheese CompanyDips, cheese based, manufacturing999
- Los Banos UnifiedSchool district985FTE
- Merced County Office of Education SchoolsSchool district952FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 147 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 21,213 people in all across the county; Planada has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts 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
- DroughtVery high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Planada’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 Merced County and the Merced, CA metro.
Planada home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Planada$291,896
- 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.
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 Planada address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Planada — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.