Tehachapi, California.
Typical home $421,840 (+0.8% in a year), asking rent $2,160 (+5.5%). Bakersfield, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,155 (+109%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $3,201 +1%
- $418,639$421,840 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $54,702 +15%
- $367,138$421,840 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.
- Tehachapi$2,214
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 25 years.
Typical home values in Tehachapi, CA rose 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Tehachapi, CA rose 5.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Tehachapi runs $816/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,080 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,976 a month against $2,160 rent: a $2,214 mortgage payment, plus $310 property tax and $452 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Tehachapi
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$2,976
- Renting$2,160
- Mortgage only$2,214
Property tax · $310/mo 0.88% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Kern County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $452/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 Tehachapi, Kern County, California
Tehachapi is a city of 12,939 people in Kern County. Half its households earn more than $72,957 a year and half less, against $70,210 across Kern County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 58% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 42% are rented. Unemployment in Kern County was 8.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then government.
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. Tehachapi is a small city in Kern County, home to a modest number of people at the last census. Household incomes run a little above the county's, though more people here live below the poverty line than you might expect from that. More homes are lived in by their owners than rented, and a four-year degree is held by a smaller share of adults than in much of the country. Winters are cold, with December highs near freezing-cool territory and nights that dip below the freezing mark, while August is warm. Rain and melted snow add up to a modest amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in government, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in shops. Among the largest workplaces in town are the California Correctional Institution, Tehachapi Unified and Adventist Health Tehachapi Valley. Unemployment across Kern County is high, and the county has a few fewer jobs than a year earlier. The typical commute is a fairly short drive, and only a small share of people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away is the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument, a protected area, and Tomo-Kahni State Historic Park, another protected area close by. ESMoA, a museum, is also a short drive away. For a longer outing, Willow Springs International Motorsports Park is a race track a longer drive from town.
Report a mistake
- 3,610households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kern County had 347,044 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 51° and lows near 31°; warmest in August, with highs near 86° and lows near 56°. About 13 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tehachapi Southeast weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Tehachapi
- California Correctional InstitutionDetention centers1,164
- Tehachapi UnifiedSchool district490FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters284
- Adventist Health Tehachapi ValleyCritical access hospital170FTE
- AlbertsonsSupermarkets and other grocery stores111
- EPIC de Cesar Chavez DistrictSchool district96FTE
- Bowe ContractorsCarpentry, framing25
- Pennzoil-Quaker State CompanyGreases, petroleum lubricating, made from refined petroleum23
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,651 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals 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
- WildfireVery high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Tehachapi’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 Kern County and the Bakersfield, CA metro.
Tehachapi home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Tehachapi$421,840
- 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 4 Tehachapi listings, and the typical home goes pending in 42 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.
- Tehachapi24.06%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Tehachapi42
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Tehachapi313
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Tehachapi62
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Tehachapi$459,515
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Tehachapi98.99%
Zip codes with a Tehachapi address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Tehachapi — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.