Porterville, California.
Typical home $327,631 (+1.5% in a year), asking rent $1,475 (+4.1%). Visalia, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$905 (+111%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,770 +1%
- $322,861$327,631 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $55,694 +20%
- $271,937$327,631 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.
- Porterville$1,720
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 19 years.
Typical home values in Porterville, CA rose 1.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Porterville, CA rose 4.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Porterville runs $787/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $971 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,262 a month against $1,475 rent: a $1,720 mortgage payment, plus $192 property tax and $351 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Porterville
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$2,262
- Renting$1,475
- Mortgage only$1,720
Property tax · $192/mo 0.70% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Tulare County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $351/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 Porterville, Tulare County, California
Porterville is a city of 62,623 people in Tulare County. Half its households earn more than $60,461 a year and half less, against $71,300 across Tulare County; 17% of its people live below the poverty line. 54% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 46% are rented. Unemployment in Porterville was 13.1% in August 2026, and Tulare County had 1.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then farming.
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. Porterville is a city in Tulare County, in California's Central Valley, with a younger population than most of the country. Incomes are below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than is typical, while fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places. Slightly more homes are lived in by their owners than are rented. Winters are mild and cool, summers are hot, and little rain or snow falls across the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in farming, in shops, and in government. Among the largest workplaces in Porterville are Porterville Unified, Sierra View Medical Center and Walmart. Unemployment is high, though it is lower than a year ago, and across Tulare County there are slightly fewer jobs than the year before. Most people travel to work by commuting, and very few work from home.
Things to do. Lake Success, a reservoir, is a short drive away and is the closest of the outdoor places nearby. Farther afield, Sequoia National Forest is a protected area reached by a longer drive, as is Giant Sequoia National Monument, which holds groves of the giant trees. The Visalia Fox Theatre, also a longer drive away, is the nearest of the theatres for an evening out.
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- 19,335households
- 14%of adults have a degree
- 17%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Tulare County had 174,610 jobs in 2025, 1.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 59° and lows near 40°; warmest in July, with highs near 98° and lows near 68°. About 11 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Porterville weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Porterville
- Porterville UnifiedSchool district1,434FTE
- WalmartGeneral warehousing and storage1,187
- Sierra View Medical CenterHospitals, general medical and surgical1,002
- Burton Elementary SchoolsSchool district571FTE
- Young'sAgricultural products trucking, local295
- WalmartDiscount department stores289
- Porterville CollegeTwo-year college273
- TargetDiscount department stores215
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 44 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,274 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Inland floodingVery high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Porterville’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 Tulare County and the Visalia, CA metro.
Porterville home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Porterville$327,631
- 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 Porterville listings, and the typical home goes pending in 22 days — 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.
- Porterville24.02%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Porterville22
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Porterville123
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Porterville38
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Porterville$314,065
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Porterville100.59%
Zip codes with a Porterville address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Porterville — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.