Home values, prices continue to rise in Fresno County. What are houses worth now?
The Fresno area remains one of the cheapest areas among California’s major metropolitan markets to buy a home. But with an increase in the median selling price of almost 28% over the past two years, it’s getting more difficult for people who live and work here to find a house they can afford.
Recent data from online real estate firm Zillow.com indicates that half of the houses sold in Fresno County in March 2022 went for a selling price of $390,000, while half sold for less than that price. Among California metropolitan statistical areas included in the Zillow data, only Bakersfield had a lower median selling price than Fresno.
March’s median sale price in Fresno is the highest it’s ever been, and more than $100,000 higher than in January 2020, according to the Zillow data.
The median household income in Fresno County, in the meantime, is less than $58,000 per year, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, and almost 21% of residents have incomes that are at or below poverty level. Almost 47% of all housing units – houses, apartments, condos, mobile homes and others – are filled by people who rent rather than own their homes.
Zillow’s estimates of value for the “typical” single-family house in Fresno and its neighborhoods, and in Fresno County and its various cities, have also climbed substantially since the beginning of 2020. The estimates attempt to capture the value of homes in an area, whether or not they are on the market.
Citywide in Fresno, the Zillow home value index in March 2022 was more than $374,000, a 41.4% increase from the January 2020 estimate of just over $265,000.
The index and the rates of increase vary from neighborhood to neighborhood within Fresno. The Woodward Park area and northeast Fresno registered the highest value on the index at just under $560,000. That’s the highest estimated value for a “typical” home in the area among Fresno neighborhoods, but it also represents the lowest rate of increase over the past two years at just under 35%.
Instead, it was in southwest Fresno and the Edison High neighborhood – an area with the second-lowest estimated typical home value on the Zillow index in Fresno at a little over $241,000 – that saw the largest percentage gain within the city. The increase of almost $79,000 represented a gain of 50.1%%.
The typical Clovis home saw its estimated value climb by more than $140,000 since 2020, rising from about $361,000 in January 2020 to more than $501,000 by March 2022. That amounts to an increase in the Zillow index of almost 39%.
Countywide, the Zillow index estimated a typcial Fresno County home at a value of more than $387,000 in March 2022, up about 40% from the January 2020 estimate of just over $276,000.
This story was originally published April 11, 2022 at 3:01 PM.
