Sonora, California.
Typical home $399,620 (-1.6% in a year), asking rent $1,536 . Sonora, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$852 (+68%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $6,575 -2%
- $406,194$399,620 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $4,451 -1%
- $404,071$399,620 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.
- Sonora$2,098
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Sonora, CA fell 1.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Sonora, Tuolumne County, California
Sonora is a city of 5,003 people in Tuolumne County. 43% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 57% are rented. Unemployment in Tuolumne County was 5.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Sonora is a small city in Tuolumne County, and fewer homes here are lived in by their owners than renters would suggest elsewhere: renting is more common than owning. A fair number of residents have a four-year degree, and poverty is more widespread than in many places, so the town has a mix of circumstances. Winters are cool, with lows near freezing in December and little or no snow, while July brings hot days.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in government, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in Sonora are Adventist Health Sonora, Walmart and Safeway. Some people work from home, and jobs across the county have edged up slightly over the past year.
Things to do. Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, a museum, is in or beside town. A short drive away are Columbia State Historic Park, a protected area, and New Melones Lake, a reservoir. For a longer outing, Stanislaus National Forest is a protected area a longer drive away.
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- 2,216households
- 33%of adults have a degree
- 17%below the poverty line
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Tuolumne County had 18,392 jobs in 2025, 0.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 55° and lows near 32°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 57°. About 33 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Sonora weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sonora
- Adventist Health SonoraGeneral hospital872FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters340
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores135
- Sonora Union High SchoolsSchool district113FTE
- Sonora Elementary SchoolsSchool district99FTE
- Tuolumne County Superintendent of SchoolsSchool district88FTE
- Forest ServiceFederal government · Department of Agriculture84
- SonoraMail and parcel delivery49
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,629 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Sonora’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 Tuolumne County and the Sonora, CA metro.
Sonora home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sonora$399,620
- 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 3 Sonora listings — 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.
- Sonora29.45%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Sonora17
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Sonora$369,302
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Sonora address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sonora — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.