Thermal, California.
Typical home $298,243 (-0.5% in a year). Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$925 (+144%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,543 -1%
- $299,786$298,243 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $69,100 +30%
- $229,143$298,243 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.
- Thermal$1,565
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Thermal, CA fell 0.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Thermal, Riverside County, California
Thermal, in Riverside County, had 2,676 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Riverside County was 6.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Riverside County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Thermal is a small community in the Coachella Valley, in Riverside County. Homes here are valued well below what is typical elsewhere in the county, and household incomes sit below the county's. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and most people get to work in a short drive.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Riverside County, the largest workplaces include the University of California-Riverside, Amazon's warehousing operation and Riverside Unified, a school district. Unemployment across the county is about where it was a year ago, and the number of jobs has edged up slightly.
Things to do. Shields Date Gardens and Valerie Jean Dates, both gardens, are a short drive away. With a longer drive, you can reach Joshua Tree National Park, the Salton Sea and the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens. Winters here are mild and summers are extremely hot, with very little rain and almost no snow, so cooler months suit outings best.
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- 9%of adults have a degree
- 22 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Riverside County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Riverside County had 846,070 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 69° and lows near 38°; warmest in July, with highs near 107° and lows near 76°. About 3 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Desert Resorts Regional Airport weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Riverside County
- University of California-RiversideUniversity or college4,684
- Corona-Norco UnifiedSchool district4,333FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage4,330
- Riverside UnifiedSchool district3,906FTE
- Riverside University Health SystemGeneral hospital3,902FTE
- Eisenhower Medical CenterGeneral hospital3,892FTE
- Moreno Valley UnifiedSchool district3,304FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage3,218
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1,391 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 229,739 people in all across the county; Thermal has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts 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
- EarthquakesVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Thermal’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 Riverside County and the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA metro.
Thermal home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Thermal$298,243
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Thermal listings — the market is cooling.
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.
- Thermal19.01%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Thermal54
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Thermal11
Zip codes with a Thermal address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Thermal — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.