FRU News · By the State
California: home values, property taxes and loan categories
California's median home value, property taxes and monthly owner costs from the Census Bureau, and the three loan categories a California mortgage can fall into.
48 sec · Captions available on the player · Presented by AI-generated presenters, with every line taken from the FreeRateUpdate page it answers.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2020-2024), and FreeRateUpdate state data, figures checked Oct. 26, 2026
Transcript
This is FreeRateUpdate News. I'm Edmund Ledger. Today, the numbers behind buying and borrowing in California.
California's median home value is $734,700, according to the Census Bureau.
Homeowners there paid a median $5,124 a year in property taxes, an effective tax rate of 0.7%.
Median monthly owner costs for homes with a mortgage were $2,946.
Loan amount and county can place a California mortgage in conforming, high-balance or jumbo pricing.
So compare offers within the same loan category, side by side.
I'm Edmund Ledger, for FreeRateUpdate News.
What the charts show
Two on-screen tables. The first shows California's medians: home value $734,700; property taxes paid $5,124 a year, a 0.70% effective tax rate; monthly owner costs with a mortgage $2,946. The second shows which loan category a California loan gets: conforming, within the county's conforming limit; high-balance, above the base limit in higher-cost counties; jumbo, above the county's conforming limit.