Big Bear City, CA population, income and ZIP codes

Big Bear City CDP is a mid-size town in California, with 12,493 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #445 of 1,618 ranked by population — larger than 72% of them. The median age here is 44.3 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Big Bear City CDP earn a median of $72,457 a year, 7.7% below the national figure of $78,538 and 20% below the $91,111 median for the 1,050 California cities we cover. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 15.3% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Big Bear City CDP is valued at $427,700, 41% above the national figure and 27% below the $589,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,454 a month, 3.4% above the national figure, or roughly $17,448 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 24.1% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 5.9×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 71.9% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.