Richvale, California.
Typical home $332,695 (+8.5% in a year). Chico, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$747 (+75%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $25,926 +8%
- $306,769$332,695 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $35,920 +12%
- $296,775$332,695 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.
- Richvale$1,746
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 30 years.
Typical home values in Richvale, CA rose 8.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Richvale, Butte County, California
Richvale, in Butte County, had 234 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Butte County was 6.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Butte County work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Richvale is a very small farming community in Butte County, with a population that is tiny even by the standards of rural California. Household incomes across the county run below the national level, and homes in the town are priced modestly by California standards. Winters are mild and cool, with January the coldest month, while summers turn hot, with July the warmest, and rain and melted snow add up to a moderate amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops, and professional and business services. Across Butte County, the biggest workplaces include Enloe Medical Center, California State University-Chico and Chico Unified. Unemployment across the county is slightly lower than a year ago, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Lake Oroville is the best known of the nearby places, a large reservoir that is a longer drive away, as is the Lake Oroville State Recreation Area around it. Feather Falls, also a longer drive away, is a waterfall for those who like to be outdoors. Bidwell Park, a park in Chico, rounds out the list of places worth the trip.
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What people in Butte County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Butte County had 78,544 jobs in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 55° and lows near 40°; warmest in July, with highs near 96° and lows near 65°. About 26 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Oroville Municipal Airport weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Butte County
- Enloe Medical CenterGeneral hospital3,095FTE
- California State University-ChicoUniversity or college1,858
- Chico UnifiedSchool district1,354FTE
- Oroville HospitalGeneral hospital1,327FTE
- Butte CollegeTwo-year college1,054
- CAL FireCal fire507
- Sierra Nevada Brewing CompanyBreweries459
- Lundberg Family FarmsRice farming, field and seed production384
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 131 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 18,366 people in all across the county; Richvale has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (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
- DroughtVery high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Richvale’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 Butte County and the Chico, CA metro.
Richvale home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Richvale$332,695
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
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 Richvale address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Richvale — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.