Fresno, CA
California prices without California jobs. Fresno is the agricultural Central Valley metro — single-county Fresno County, $363K median, **P/I 5.05 expensive**, **R/I 27.8% moderate**, cap proxy **3.57% tight**. HPI +47.8% over 5 years but YoY +1.02% essentially flat. Permits 2.31/1k tight. Migration −818 shrinking. **Bachelors 22.9% (lowest in T5)**, owner-occupancy 56.6% low. Anchored by Cal State Fresno, Saint Agnes, Sun-Maid, Foster Farms, Cargill — agriculture and education, no tech, no growth premium.
The numbers that matter most
What an investor checks first when sizing up a new metro — affordability ratio, rent vs income, cap rate proxy, and where the market is moving. Each metric shown vs. state and national medians for instant context.
expensive
Price to income
5.05×
The single most-cited 'is this market still cheap' check. Below 3× and you're in an affordability tailwind.
- vs California
- 5.95×-0.89
- vs U.S.
- 3.43×
Benchmark
ACS median home value ÷ median HHI
moderate
Rent to income
27.8%
What share of a typical household's income goes to rent. Below 30% means tenants can absorb modest rent increases.
- vs California
- 28.8%-1.0
- vs U.S.
- 23.3%
Benchmark
(HUD FMR 2BR × 12) ÷ median HHI
tight
Cap rate proxy
3.6%
Rough first-pass yield assuming a 35% expense ratio. Not an underwriting number — a 'is this even worth modeling' filter.
- vs California
- 3.1%+0.5
- vs U.S.
- 4.4%
Benchmark
(FMR 2BR × 12 × 0.65) ÷ ACS median home value
shrinking
Net migration
-0.08%
Forward-looking demand signal. Positive net migration drives rent growth and absorbs new supply.
- vs California
- -0.03%
- vs U.S.
- 0.04%
Benchmark
IRS net migration ÷ population
pipeline growing
Permit pipeline
2.31
permits per 1,000 residents
Forward-supply indicator. Above ~5 means the metro is building meaningfully relative to its size; below 2 means supply is tight.
- vs California
- 2.39
- vs U.S.
- 3.49
Benchmark
Census BPS permits TTM ÷ population × 1,000
softening
Unemployment
—
Tighter unemployment means higher wages, more rental demand, lower vacancy.
- vs California
- 4.8%
- vs U.S.
- 4.0%
Benchmark
BLS LAUS, latest month
Section index — click any row to jump
What the data says about Fresno
Fresno is California prices on a Central Valley wage base. Across 1 county — Fresno County (the entire metro is the county and the county is the entire metro) — the metro packs 1.01 million residents with a household income of $71,897 (Census ACS) and a median home value of $363,300. The HUD Fair Market Rent for a 2-bedroom is $1,664. The House Price Index ran +47.8% over five years (FHFA HPI) — solid by national standards, beating the U.S. metros average of +34.3% by 13 percentage points.
The interesting fact is that Fresno carries California prices without the California job market. The price-to-income ratio is 5.05 — expensive. The rent-to-income is 27.8% — moderate. The cap rate proxy is 3.57% — tight. Recent year-over-year HPI is +1.02% — basically flat. Inside California, Fresno ranks #7 of 26 by population, #9 by permits, #7 by 5-year HPI — middle of the state in every dimension. The 5-year compounding came from CA-wide rate-driven repricing; the YoY collapse to +1% says the trade is over.
Fresno is a single-county Central Valley metro — like Tucson, Honolulu, Las Vegas:
- Fresno County (1.01M pop, $362,600 MHV) is the entire metro. 2,326 permits TTM = 2.31 per 1,000 — below the national 3.49 and below the California state median of 2.39. Below the median in a state already known for low building. The relevant submarkets are inside Fresno County: Fresno proper (Tower District, Sunnyside, Old Fig Garden), Clovis (the affluent NE suburb), Selma, Sanger, Reedley, Kerman.
The 85% single-family / 10% 5+ multifamily mix is heavy on detached SFR construction. Most of Fresno County is geographically constrained — the eastern half is Sierra Nevada foothills (national forest, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia), and water rights + farmland conservation (the Williamson Act, the SGMA groundwater law) further constrain the supply side. Fresno can't easily sprawl even if it wanted to. Permit YoY +7.0% is modest acceleration.
What's changing: net IRS migration is −818 returns (IRS SOI) — −0.08% of population, the Central Valley out-migration pattern. Owner-occupancy 56.6% (low), bachelor's-or-higher 22.9% (the lowest in any T5 metro in the queue), median age 33.4 (young), rent burden 51.2% (very high). The labor market is anchored by California State University Fresno, Fresno State agriculture, Saint Agnes Medical Center, and the agricultural cluster — Sun-Maid raisins, Foster Farms poultry, Cargill almonds, Pelco/Schneider Electric. Education + healthcare + ag — there is no tech, no defense, no growth premium.
What does an investor do?
- If you're hunting cash flow: Fresno is rough. 3.57% cap proxy on a $363K median doesn't work for buy-and-hold. The R/I 27.8% is moderate but the rent burden is already 51.2% — pushing rents higher hits demand limits fast. The math doesn't pencil at current prices.
- If you're playing appreciation: Don't. Fresno's cycle has rolled over (+1.02% YoY) and the structural fundamentals — 22.9% bachelor's, agricultural employment base, Central Valley out-migration — don't support another five-year +47% run.
- If you already own here: Hold. Fresno isn't going to crash — water and farmland constraints limit supply, the agricultural employment is sticky, and the rent burden floor protects landlords. But it's not going to compound either. Treat your Fresno positions as cash flow holds, not appreciation plays. If you can find sub-$300K SFR in southwest Fresno or the Selma corridor, the rent ratios still work; everything else is too expensive for the wage base.
Where prices are and where they've been
FHFA House Price Index — repeat-sales index across the metro, sized against this metro's median household income and benchmarked against the Indiana metros average and U.S. metros average.
5-year price appreciation
+47.8%
FHFA HPI · Q1 2020 → Q4 2025
+1.0% YoY
$363,300 median home value
Fresno home prices climbed 47.8% over the last 5 years according to the FHFA repeat-sales index — a steady appreciation pace for a Midwest metro of this size. The 1-year change has cooled to 1.0%, signaling the post-2022 surge has unwound into steady-state appreciation.
See the chart below for how the metro's appreciation curve stacks up against the Indiana metros average and the U.S. metros average. The gap between the metro and the national line is the "catch-up" or "lag" signal — and the slope tells you whether the gap is widening or closing.
How to read it
- 01Fresno ran **+47.8% over five years** — solid by national standards (beating +34.3% by 13 points) but middle of the pack inside California, where the smaller Mountain and Inland Empire metros ran harder.
- 02**Recent YoY is +1.02%** — basically flat. The post-2022 cooldown is here. While Buffalo and Rochester run hot at +5%, Fresno sits at one percent.
- 03Inside California, Fresno ranks **#7 of 26** for 5-year HPI — middle of the state. **#7 by population, #9 by permits, #7 by HPI** — consistently middle in every dimension.
- 04U.S. metros ran **+34.3%** over the same window. Fresno outperformed by ~13 points — but on a $363K base where the math has stopped working at current prices.
- 05The takeaway: Fresno is **California prices on a Central Valley wage base**. The 5-year compounding came from CA-wide rate-driven repricing; the YoY collapse to +1% says the trade is over.
Where the value tier sits — top 1 counties by home value
| County | Median home value | Median HHI | Price-to-income | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fresno County | $362,600 | $71,434 | 5.08× | stretched |
How to read the FHFA House Price Index
FHFA HPI is a repeat-sales index — it tracks the price change of the same properties over time, smoothing out new construction and luxury transactions. It's built from the mortgage data the GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) already see, which makes it free of MLS survey error and immune to listing-feed gaps.
- 01Repeat-sales method. Tracks the same properties over time, so new construction and luxury transactions don't skew the trend.
- 02Federally sourced. Built from GSE mortgage data — no MLS survey error, no commercial license required to publish.
- 03Slope, not level. Watch the slope of the line, not the absolute index value — a steepening curve is a more reliable buy signal than the level.
The rent ladder
HUD Fair Market Rent by bedroom count, sized against this metro's median household income and benchmarked vs Indiana and the U.S.
Typical 2-bedroom rent
$1,664
/ month · HUD FMR FY 2026
27.8% of median HHI
A typical 2-bedroom in costs the median household 27.8% of their income — 4.5 points above the U.S. average (23.3%) 1.0 points below California (28.8%).
HUD calls anything above 30% "rent-burdened." This metro sits comfortably under that line, which means tenants can absorb modest rent increases — and landlords have headroom on rent hikes before pushing tenants out of the market.
Fair Market Rent — by bedroom count
| Bedroom | Monthly | Annual | % of median HHI | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 BR | $1,355 | $16.3K | 22.6% | comfortable |
| 2 BR | $1,664 | $20.0K | 27.8% | moderate |
| 3 BR | $2,314 | $27.8K | 38.6% | rent-burdened |
Why HUD Fair Market Rent matters
FMR is HUD's 40th-percentile rent estimate by bedroom count — refreshed every fiscal year, sourced from Census surveys (not commercial listing data), and used as the cap for Section 8 voucher payments. Three things investors should know:
- 01Defensible benchmark. Federal source, no commercial license required to publish or compare against.
- 02Section 8 ceiling. A property at or below FMR is voucher-eligible — government-paid rent at the FMR cap.
- 03Conservative estimate. 40th percentile means more than half of actual market rents in the metro come in higher.
Labor market direction
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — LAUS (unemployment) + CES (nonfarm employment), benchmarked against the U.S. average.
Unemployment rate
—
BLS LAUS · latest month
Fresno's labor market is softening, with unemployment running at —.
For an investor, tighter unemployment means higher wages, more rental demand, and lower vacancy. The trend chart below shows how the metro's unemployment has moved over the last 30 months.
Unemployment rate
—
Nonfarm jobs
—
Median household income
$71,897
ACS 5-year
How to read the labor market
Two BLS series tell you almost everything you need about a metro's labor market: LAUS (unemployment, refreshed monthly) and CES (nonfarm payroll counts, refreshed monthly). LAUS is the tightness signal; CES is the size and direction signal.
- 01Unemployment is rental demand. Tighter labor markets mean higher wages and lower vacancy — landlords have pricing power when employers are competing for workers.
- 02YoY change is the trend signal. A negative pp YoY change means the labor market tightened over the last year — usually a leading indicator for rent growth.
- 03Nonfarm growth is supply absorption. Positive nonfarm payroll growth absorbs new housing supply and supports the rent + price trajectory together.
What's being built
U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey — trailing 12 months, broken out by structure type, with the YoY change as the directional signal.
Total permits TTM
2,326
Census BPS · trailing 12 months
+7.0% year-over-year
2.31 permits per 1,000 residents
Fresno pulled 2,326 building permits over the trailing 12 months, a modest expansion 7.0% year-over-year. That works out to 2.31 permits per 1,000 residents, vs the U.S. metros average of 3.49.
Single-family vs multifamily mix matters: 5+ unit permits are lumpy (developers file for entire projects at once), while single-family permits are smoother and more reliable as a demand signal. The chart below breaks out the monthly mix.
Single family
1,982
trailing 12 months
2–4 unit
101
trailing 12 months
5+ unit
243
trailing 12 months
How to read the supply pipeline
Census BPS publishes building permit counts every month at the county level, by structure type. Single-family permits are the smooth signal — they reflect ongoing builder demand. 5+ unit permits are lumpy and project-level — one apartment approval can spike a month.
- 01Permits per 1,000 residents. The size-adjusted comparison number. Above ~5 means the metro is building meaningfully relative to its population; below 2 means supply is tight.
- 02YoY change is the direction. Year-over-year change in TTM permits tells you whether builders are leaning in or pulling back. Watch this number for trend reversals.
- 03Mix matters for cap rates. Heavy 5+ unit permitting tends to compress cap rates; single-family-dominated pipelines preserve them.
All 1 counties, ranked by population
Census Bureau (population, ACS demographics) + Census Building Permits Survey.
How to read it
- 01**Fresno County is the entire metro** — 1.01 million residents, 2,326 TTM permits = 2.31 per 1,000.
- 02Fresno is a **single-county metro** — like Tucson, Honolulu, Las Vegas. All metro activity happens in Fresno County.
- 03**85% single-family / 10% 5+ multifamily mix** — heavy on detached SFR construction in the Clovis suburb and the southwest Fresno-Selma corridor.
- 04Fresno runs **2.31 permits per 1,000 residents** — below the national 3.49 and below the California state median of 2.39. **Below the median in a state already known for low building**.
- 05**Permit YoY is +7.0%** — modest acceleration off a low base. Not the breakout numbers of Birmingham (+59.7%) or Tulsa (+47.9%) — Fresno is steady, slow, constrained by water and farmland.
How to read the map
- 01**Fresno County (the entire metro) at 2.31 per 1,000** — below the national 3.49 and below the California state median.
- 02Single-county metros compress the visualization — **the relevant submarkets are inside Fresno County**: Fresno proper (Tower District, Sunnyside, Old Fig Garden), Clovis (the affluent NE suburb), Selma, Sanger, Reedley, Kerman.
- 03**Clovis** is where most affluent new construction happens — the master-planned NE suburb is the de facto growth corridor.
- 04Fresno County is geographically massive — most of the eastern half is the Sierra Nevada foothills (national forest, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia) where almost no building happens. The actual residential growth is compressed into a narrow Highway 99 corridor.
- 05Water rights and farmland conservation (the Williamson Act, the SGMA groundwater law) further constrain the supply side. **Fresno can't easily sprawl even if it wanted to.**
| # | County | Population | Median HHI | Home value | Permits TTM | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fresno County | 1,008,280 | $71,434 | $362,600 | 2,326 | +7.0% |
Similar metros nationally
5 metros closest to Fresno by population and median household income — head-to-head on the metrics that matter for an investor.
Peer set
5
metros nearest by population + HHI
Fresno is closest in size to Tulsa, Tucson, Rochester, Greenville.
The table below ranks every metric — green cells mark the best value in the column, rust cells mark the worst. Fresno is highlighted as the focal row.
| Metro | Pop | Med HHI | Home value | P/I | Cap proxy | HPI 5y | Permits/1k | Migration | Unemp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
★Fresno | 1.01M | $72K | $363K | 5.05× | 3.6% | +47.8% | 2.31 | -0.08% | — |
Tulsa, OK | 1.02M | $68K | $204K | 3.01× | 4.6% | +52.6% | 4.94 | +0.13% | — |
Tucson, AZ | 1.04M | $68K | $287K | 4.22× | 3.8% | +55.1% | 4.44 | +0.21% | 4.1% |
Rochester, NY | 1.09M | $74K | $190K | 2.55× | 6.5% | +66.5% | 1.73 | -0.19% | 3.7% |
Greenville-Anderson, SC | 0.93M | $69K | $243K | 3.52× | 4.3% | +64.9% | 8.85 | +0.32% | 4.6% |
Birmingham-Hoover, AL | 1.11M | $70K | $226K | 3.25× | 4.4% | +44.7% | 3.82 | -0.08% | 2.2% |
How to read this comparison
Peer metros are picked by population + median household income — the closest five matches nationally — so the comparison is apples-to-apples on size and economic class. Sun Belt entrants like Las Vegas and Nashville are included when they fall in range, which is why this peer set spans both the Midwest and the Sun Belt.
- 01Green = best in column. The cell with the most-favorable value for that metric, accounting for whether higher or lower is better.
- 02Rust = worst in column. The cell with the least-favorable value. Combined with the green markers, this is your at-a-glance "where does my metro win and where does it lose."
- 03Cap proxy is the yield lens. Cap rate proxy = (FMR 2BR × 12 × 0.65) ÷ median home value. A first-pass yield filter, not an underwriting number — but it puts the peer set on a single comparable scale.
Where people are moving in from
IRS Statistics of Income — Tax Year 2022. Excludes intra-metro suburban churn.
Net migration
-818
tax returns · IRS SOI · TY 2022
-0.08% of metro population
1,134 from top origin
Fresno is slowly losing residents on net — net IRS migration of −818 returns, −0.08% of population. The Central Valley pattern: educated households leaving for Sacramento and the coastal metros, replaced (barely) by inflows from rural California and the Central American agricultural worker pipeline.
The IRS data lags by ~2 years (households file taxes the year after they move), but it's the only nationwide county-to-county migration data sourced from administrative records, not survey estimates. The table below shows the top origin counties — the gravitational sources of new residents.
Top origin counties — where new residents are coming from
| Origin county | Tax returns |
|---|---|
| Tulare County, CA | 1,134 |
| Madera County, CA | 1,124 |
| Los Angeles County, CA | 817 |
| Kings County, CA | 546 |
| Santa Clara County, CA | 532 |
| Sacramento County, CA | 397 |
Who lives in Fresno
U.S. Census Bureau · American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates · 2019–2023 vintage.
Who lives here
- Median age
- 33.4
- Owner-occupancy
- 56.6%
- Bachelor's+
- 22.9%
Fresno young Midwest metro: Median age 33.4, 56.6% owner-occupancy 22.9% holding a bachelor's degree or higher. Stable, educated, and mostly homeowner-driven.
The catch: 51.2% of renter households are rent-burdened (paying 30%+ of income on rent) — high enough to flag as a constraint on rent growth even though the headline rent-to-income ratio looks comfortable.
- Median household income
- $71,897
- Median age
- 33.4
- Bachelor's+ degree
- 22.9%
- Owner-occupancy rate
- 56.6%
- Vacancy rate
- 6.5%
- Rent burdened (30%+)
- 51.2%
Data sources
| Metric | Source | Type | Vintage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home prices | FHFA — House Price Index | Index | Q4 2025 |
| Fair market rents | HUD — Fair Market Rents | Administrative | FY 2026 |
| Unemployment rate | BLS — Local Area Unemployment Statistics | Survey | Dec 2025 |
| Nonfarm employment | BLS — Current Employment Statistics | Survey | Dec 2025 |
| Building permits | Census — Building Permits Survey | Survey | Mar 2026 TTM |
| Migration flows | IRS — Statistics of Income, Migration Data | Administrative | Tax Year 2022 |
| Demographics | Census — American Community Survey 5-Year | Survey | 2019–2023 |
| Household income | Census — American Community Survey 5-Year | Survey | 2019–2023 |
Page last refreshed: April 9, 2026