2026 San Bernardino County Housing Market Forecast
If your Zillow estimate dropped from what it showed in late 2024, that movement is tracking something real in the market. I’ve been buying in San Bernardino County since 2008, and what I’m seeing at the property level in early 2026 tells a more mixed story than the countywide median suggests.
Prices in Early 2026
Zillow had the county-wide typical home value at $547,153 as of February 2026, a 1.9% drop from a year earlier. Redfin had the county median at $545,000 for the same month, slightly above where it was a year prior.
Redfin has days on market at 68 countywide in early 2026, up from 56 days a year earlier. A lot of the sellers I’ve talked to recently hadn’t been watching that number, and it comes up in the first call.
The sellers I see getting to close are still landing close to their asking price. The ones sitting longest are almost always the ones who came in pricing off 2022 comps and haven’t adjusted.
The county median moved from around $460,000 in January 2024 to $505,000 by January 2025 according to San Bernardino County’s residential real estate tracking, and from what I’m seeing in the buyer pool, rates never came back down the way most of those buyers were counting on.
The buyers who went quiet when rates rose haven’t come back in the numbers I’d expect, and I’m not seeing signs of that shifting until rates get meaningfully closer to 6%.
Affordability at Current Rates
I run the payment calculation with sellers who call about market timing, and that number usually lands harder than they’d figured going in. At $547,000 with 10% down at 6.6%, principal and interest comes out around $3,400 a month before taxes and insurance, and I’ve seen that number eliminate buyers who were active at 3%.
A lot of the activity I see in this market comes from buyers who looked at LA or Orange County prices first and couldn’t make the payment math work out there. I’m still seeing that comparison pencil out at current San Bernardino County prices, though for a noticeably smaller group than was shopping this market two years ago.
Buyers I’m talking to are watching the rate forecast closely, and the forecasters I’ve been tracking have rates moving toward 6% by late 2026, which I think is when the terms available to buyers right now start shifting.
Something I’ve been watching on the supply side is the permit count. The county issued 5,458 building permits in 2024, down 25% from the 7,315 issued in 2023 according to county data, and those aren’t homes that builders will be bringing to market for another 12 to 18 months.
Fewer builders were in the pipeline at the end of 2024 than a year earlier. The Zillow 12-month forecast for the broader Inland Empire still shows a +2.3% projected gain despite soft activity, which I’d read as forecasters factoring in the supply shortage rather than ignoring the demand weakness.
Three Very Different Markets Inside One County
Most of the mistakes I see in how people read this market come from treating San Bernardino County as one thing. It runs from the LA County line past the Nevada border and up into mountain elevations above 6,000 feet.
I’ve had sellers price a Hesperia property off Rancho Cucamonga comps, and that kind of mismatch tends to come out in how long the property sits before any serious offers come in.
West Valley
Updated properties in Rancho Cucamonga and Redlands are still getting offers and closing without sitting six months, mostly because buyers moving east from LA and Orange County are still running the payment math and finding those areas competitive at current rates. Those markets have slowed some from the 2022 pace but I’m still seeing buyer activity out there, particularly for move-in-ready properties priced off current comps rather than what things were doing two years ago.
High Desert
In May 2023 we closed on a house at 15543 Fir St in Hesperia for $330,000. The property sat on 1.39 acres with a septic system and the sellers were out-of-state heirs handling everything from Oregon, and properties like that come with lender and inspection conditions that catch out-of-state sellers off guard, especially when they’re trying to manage the transaction remotely.
I’ve been watching the High Desert closely since that deal and the conditions out there right now are running longer on days on market and seeing more price reductions than the west valley, partly because buyers financing properties with well and septic face a shorter list of lender options before you’ve even gotten to condition. Sellers in the older Hesperia and Victorville neighborhoods who are pricing off of what Rancho Cucamonga is doing tend to sit, sometimes for a long time.
Mountain Communities
In June 2025 we closed on a house at 579 Golf Course Rd in Lake Arrowhead for $420,000. The sellers were ready to move on and the property had the condition issues that tend to come with mountain elevation, aging HVAC and moisture in the framing, on top of showing traffic that drops off sharply in winter.
I’m still seeing mountain community properties trade when the condition is solid and systems have been updated, though they’re not moving fast. Anything with deferred maintenance is sitting considerably longer than the county average, and winter cuts showing traffic hard, which makes the problem worse because a mispriced mountain property can go months between serious buyers without anyone being able to sort out whether the problem is condition or pricing.
My Read on the Rest of 2026
For the west valley, I think the Zillow +2.3% Inland Empire projection is in the right neighborhood. The transaction data I’m seeing lines up with modest stabilization rather than continued correction, mostly because builders pulled back significantly in 2024 and there’s less new inventory coming while buyers are still working through the payment numbers at 6.6%.
I’m less confident about my read on the High Desert. I’m not seeing the kind of deep discounting that would signal a more serious correction, and fewer builders pulling permits means the supply pipeline is tighter over time, though that takes months to show up in prices.
I’m also not seeing demand come back in a way that would push prices up meaningfully out there, at least not until rates get closer to 6%, which most forecasters have happening sometime in the back half of the year.
Someone who works specifically in your submarket is going to have a sharper read on current neighborhood conditions than any aggregated county data, and for a decision this size I’d have that conversation before locking in any price assumptions.
If You’re Selling Right Now
The sellers I hear from who come in with the clearest picture are the ones who know which submarket they’re actually in before they start the comparison. In Rancho Cucamonga and Redlands, updated properties priced at current values are still getting to close on a traditional listing, particularly for sellers who aren’t on a hard deadline.
I’m seeing a tighter situation for sellers whose properties need significant work. By the time repairs and commission come out, and you’ve been carrying the property for four to six months on top of that, sellers who run the actual net comparison tend to find the numbers closer together than they expected when they were eyeballing a Zillow estimate.
Our San Bernardino County seller page runs through that math with a real example, and selling costs in San Bernardino County covers what those line items look like when you run the actual numbers.
I’m a cash buyer and I have an obvious interest in that math reading a certain way, I’ll be upfront about that. The sellers who’ve done the actual net-to-net comparison come in with sharper questions than people working off a rough estimate, and most of the ones who go through the exercise end up with a clearer sense of which path makes sense before they commit to anything.
If You’re Buying Right Now
Buyers I’m talking to who are actively in the market are getting accepted at terms sellers wouldn’t have discussed in 2022. Sellers who’ve been holding at peak pricing have been sitting long enough that their flexibility is increasing, and there’s more inventory available than at any point in the last few years, and the competition on individual properties has been noticeably thinner than what I was seeing even 18 months ago.
From what I’ve been tracking, county sales volume was up about 6% year-over-year, and deals are closing at these rates even though volume is still below the 2021-2022 highs. I’d expect the terms buyers are getting right now to look different once rates start moving toward 6% and more people come back into the market, which is what most forecasters are pointing to for the back half of 2026.
We’ve Been Buying in San Bernardino County Since 2008
We’ve bought across all of it, from the western valley out to Barstow and up into the mountain communities. I spent seven years as a certified residential appraiser starting in 2003 before getting into investing, and that background is what I’m working from when I walk a property and put a number together.
If you’re a seller weighing your options and want to see how the numbers actually compare in your situation, give us a call at (951) 331-3844 or request a cash offer below. We’ve had plenty of conversations where listing turned out to make more sense, so we’ll tell you if that’s what we think.
You can also look at how selling to an investor compares to listing with an agent if you want more context going in.
Written and reviewed by Doug Van Soest, former California Certified Residential Appraiser (seven years, starting 2003), and Andrea Van Soest, licensed California real estate agent (DRE #01505854) since 2005. Together they have closed over 400 transactions across Southern California since 2008.
Last reviewed: April 2026.
