Poway, California.
Typical home $1,205,399 (+0.3% in a year), asking rent $3,325 (+3.9%). San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$3,577 (+130%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,036 +0%
- $1,201,363$1,205,399 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $244,480 +25%
- $960,919$1,205,399 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.
- Poway$6,327
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Poway, CA rose 0.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Poway, CA rose 3.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Poway runs $4,971/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $5,458 in Jan 2025.
That is $8,296 a month against $3,325 rent: a $6,327 mortgage payment, plus $679 property tax and $1,290 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Poway
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$8,296
- Renting$3,325
- Mortgage only$6,327
Property tax · $679/mo 0.68% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for San Diego County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $1,290/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 Poway, San Diego County, California
Poway is a city of 48,841 people in San Diego County. Half its households earn more than $148,359 a year and half less, against $106,268 across San Diego County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 75% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 25% are rented. Unemployment in Poway was 4.5% in August 2026, and San Diego County had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Poway is a city in San Diego County where most homes are lived in by their owners, and the population is somewhat older than a typical American community. Incomes run well above the county's, relatively few residents live below the poverty line, and a four-year degree is common among adults. Homes here are costly to buy and costly to rent.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in manufacturing, or in shops. Among the largest workplaces in Poway are Palomar Medical Center Poway, a general hospital, and General Atomics, which makes aircraft, along with Corovan Moving & Storage. A good number of people work from home, and the usual commute is moderate in length.
Things to do. Lake Poway, a reservoir in or beside town, is the closest spot for time outdoors. The San Diego Zoo Safari Park is a short drive away, and Balboa Park, with its gardens and museums, is a longer drive. Winters are mild and fairly cool, summers warm, and the year is dry.
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- 16,423households
- 54%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 24%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. San Diego County had 1,535,067 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 66° and lows near 44°; warmest in August, with highs near 83° and lows near 64°. About 14 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Rancho Bernardo weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Poway
- Palomar Medical Center PowayGeneral hospital996FTE
- General Atomics - PowayAircraft manufacturing665
- General Atomics - PowayAircraft manufacturing505
- Corovan Moving & StorageUsed household and office goods moving485
- General Atomics - PowayAircraft manufacturing466
- General Atomics - PowayAircraft manufacturing451
- General Atomics - PowayAircraft manufacturing421
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters356
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 85 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,909 people in all. Hospitals come 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
- WildfireRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of PowayRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Poway’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 San Diego County and the San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA metro.
Poway home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Poway$1,205,399
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Poway 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.
- Poway32.86%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Poway22
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Poway114
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Poway32
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Poway$1,180,336
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Poway99.30%
Zip codes with a Poway address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Poway — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.