San Bruno, California.
Typical home $1,286,954 (+3.8% in a year), asking rent $3,346 (+10.1%). San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$3,110 (+85%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $47,578 +4%
- $1,239,376$1,286,954 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $136,435 +12%
- $1,150,519$1,286,954 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.
- San Bruno$6,755
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 31 years.
Typical home values in San Bruno, CA rose 3.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in San Bruno, CA rose 10.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in San Bruno runs $5,441/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $5,720 in Jan 2025.
That is $8,787 a month against $3,346 rent: a $6,755 mortgage payment, plus $655 property tax and $1,378 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — San Bruno
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$8,787
- Renting$3,346
- Mortgage only$6,755
Property tax · $655/mo 0.61% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for San Mateo County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $1,378/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 San Bruno, San Mateo County, California
San Bruno is a city of 43,908 people in San Mateo County. Half its households earn more than $141,272 a year and half less, against $158,855 across San Mateo County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 62% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 38% are rented. Unemployment in San Bruno was 3.9% in August 2026, and San Mateo County had 1.2% 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. San Bruno is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County, with a population that is about middle-aged for the country. Household incomes run below the county's, though the county is a high-income one, and homes here are still costly to buy and to rent. Most households own their homes rather than rent, and a good share of adults have a four-year degree. Winters are mild, with chilly but not freezing nights, summers stay fairly cool, and snow is almost unknown, with moderate rain over the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, shops, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Skyline College, Target and San Bruno Park Elementary Schools are among the largest workplaces in town. The commute is moderate, and a fair number of people work from home. Unemployment has eased a little compared with a year earlier, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Candlestick Park, the old stadium, and the San Francisco Zoo are both a short drive away. Golden Gate Park, a large garden and park, and the California Academy of Sciences, which includes an aquarium, are a longer drive away in San Francisco.
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- 15,224households
- 45%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 18%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. San Mateo County had 411,346 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 58° and lows near 45°; warmest in September, with highs near 72° and lows near 53°. About 32 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Pacifica Sse weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in San Bruno
- Skyline CollegeUniversity or college486
- Artichoke Joe's7999435
- TargetDiscount department stores209
- San Bruno Park Elementary SchoolsSchool district186FTE
- WalmartElectronic shopping and mail-order houses174
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter165
- San BrunoMail and parcel delivery125
- Silicon Valley LogisticsCourier services94
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 13 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,492 people in all. Colleges come 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
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in San Bruno’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 Mateo County and the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
San Bruno home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- San Bruno$1,286,954
- 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 7 San Bruno listings, and the typical home goes pending in 15 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.
- San Bruno13.76%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- San Bruno15
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- San Bruno51
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- San Bruno24
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- San Bruno$1,233,970
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- San Bruno105.52%
Zip codes with a San Bruno address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls San Bruno — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.