San Rafael, California.
Typical home $1,313,734 (+3.0% in a year), asking rent $3,166 (+4.2%). San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$3,322 (+93%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $38,308 +3%
- $1,275,426$1,313,734 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $87,402 +7%
- $1,226,332$1,313,734 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 Rafael$6,895
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 50 years.
Typical home values in San Rafael, CA rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in San Rafael, CA rose 4.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in San Rafael runs $5,863/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $6,386 in Oct 2023.
That is $9,028 a month against $3,166 rent: a $6,895 mortgage payment, plus $726 property tax and $1,406 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — San Rafael
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$9,028
- Renting$3,166
- Mortgage only$6,895
Property tax · $726/mo 0.66% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Marin County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $1,406/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 Rafael, Marin County, California
San Rafael is a city of 61,271 people in Marin County. Half its households earn more than $119,435 a year and half less, against $149,091 across Marin County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 53% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 47% are rented. Unemployment in San Rafael was 4.0% in August 2026, and Marin County had 0.8% 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 Rafael is a city in Marin County where the typical resident is older than in much of the country. Household incomes run below the county's, though homes and rents are costly, and fewer households own their homes than live in them as renters. Winters are mild and cool, summers are warm, there is little or no snow, and the rain falls mostly outside the warm months.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in shops, and in the building trades. Among the largest workplaces in San Rafael are Dominican University of California, the San Rafael City Elementary Schools and Ghilotti Bros. Jobs across Marin County slipped a little last year, and unemployment in town is a touch lower than a year ago.
Things to do. Muir Woods National Monument, a protected area of old redwoods, is a short drive away. Across the bridge in San Francisco, a longer drive away, Golden Gate Park is a large garden park, and the California Academy of Sciences combines an aquarium with exhibits. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is another longer drive away.
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- 22,910households
- 50%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 26%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Marin County had 110,071 jobs in 2025, 0.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 57° and lows near 43°; warmest in August, with highs near 81° and lows near 56°. About 34 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the San Rafael Civic Ctr weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in San Rafael
- Dominican University of CaliforniaUniversity or college541
- KFH - San RafaelGeneral hospital489FTE
- San Rafael City Elementary SchoolsSchool district420FTE
- Ghilotti BrosPavement, highway, road, street, bridge or airport runway, construction290
- Marin County Office of Education SchoolsSchool district251FTE
- Lifehouse AgencyIntellectual and developmental disability facilities, residential250
- Guide Dogs for the Blind232
- San Rafael City High SchoolsSchool district205FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 60 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,114 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- Coastal floodingVery high
- EarthquakesVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- TsunamisRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in San Rafael’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 Marin County and the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
San Rafael home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- San Rafael$1,313,734
- 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 5 San Rafael listings, and the typical home goes pending in 16 days — the market is heating up.
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 Rafael18.84%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- San Rafael16
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- San Rafael153
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- San Rafael58
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- San Rafael$1,263,050
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- San Rafael102.95%
Zip codes with a San Rafael address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls San Rafael — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in San Rafael
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 94901 | San Rafael | 41,307 | $2,822 | $1,394,155 |
| 94903 | San Rafael | 30,615 | $3,415 | $1,250,063 |