Sutter County, CA housing market data
Median home values, rents, income, property tax, and affordability for Sutter County, California — built from Census ACS, FHFA HPI, and HUD Fair Market Rent, cross-checked and disclosed by data vintage.
Sutter County, CA is appreciation-driven for owning: at a 23.0x price-to-rent ratio, the math favors renting — monthly investor cash flow is typically thin or negative unless you buy below median or add units.
- The median home value in Sutter County, CA was $440,741 as of April 2026, up 0.9% year over year (FHFA HPI applied to the Census ACS county median).
- The typical market rent in Sutter County, CA was $1,600/mo as of November 2026, a current modeled estimate (HUD Fair Market Rent, FY2027, bridged from Census ACS gross rent).
- Sutter County, CA has a price-to-rent ratio of 23.0 — a high reading that favors renting over buying at the median. (Computed by Areal from the figures above.)
$440,741
Likely range $433,500–$440,741
$1,600/mo
Likely range $1,439–$1,600
23.0x
$79,704
1,553/100k/yr
HUD Fair Market Rent (2-BR)
$1,600/mo
HUD FY2027 · Sutter County
Property tax
0.75%
Effective rate — Census ACS county effective rate 0.75% ($3,268 tax ÷ $433,500 ACS median), applied to current value · county median tax bill $3,268/yr
Cash flow at county medians
20% down, 6.75% interest, 30-year loan, 1 unit · estimates only · Insurance: state-level estimate (CA avg 0.65%/yr)
Monthly cash flow
$-1,603
Cash-on-cash return
-21.8%
Cap rate
1.9%
Annual cash flow
$-19,231
Stress test
Resilience not scored — baseline already negativeA resilience score measures how many shocks a cash-flow-positive deal survives — with the baseline at −$1,603/mo there is nothing to protect, so there is no score (worst case −$1,965/mo). The rows below show how much deeper underwater each shock pushes the deal; the break-even math (rent, price, down payment, rate) lives in the cash-flow panel above.
Standard assumption · cash flow −$1,723/mo
Standard assumption · cash flow −$1,651/mo
Standard assumption · cash flow −$1,662/mo
Fixed-rate comparison — the deal if you'd borrowed at a higher rate today; your actual fixed payment never resets · cash flow −$1,965/mo
History-derived proxy: worst decline found in any window of up to 12 months in the state FHFA home-value series, 2007-10-01 → 2008-10-01, applied to rent · cash flow −$1,929/mo
Each scenario re-runs the same verified cash-flow engine with one shock applied, then re-checks the cash-flow identity before display. Standard shocks are fixed assumptions; the history-derived scenario is this market's own worst observed 12-month decline. Estimates only — not a guarantee of performance.
Report integrity
Every headline figure is independently re-derived from its raw inputs (cash-flow identity, cash-on-cash, cap rate, price-to-rent, and closed-form buy-vs-rent compounding) — the same checks the interactive analyzer runs.
Report integrity — internal re-derivation
16/16 verifiedHow the integrity pass works
Every headline figure is re-derived from the raw inputs (NOI − P&I = cash flow, CoC, cap rate) and the data feed's age is checked before the report is shown. This validates our own arithmetic — it is not independent source validation; the cross-dataset check is the data-confidence card above. An entry marked “by design” (e.g. price-to-rent) is the expected split between market rent and your rent estimate — two deliberately separate reads, not an arithmetic error.
Data quality
Verified — sources agree within 15% on every cross-checked metric
current estimate (ACS county median × FHFA metro HPI growth): $440,741 · raw ACS 2023 county median (as measured ~2021): $433,500
Spread +$7,241 · 1.02× ratio
HUD FMR (county): $1,600 · Census ACS (county gross rent): $1,439
Spread +$161 · 1.11× ratio
Data quality score
90/100
- + Cross-checks agree within 15% on every headline metric
- + 2 figures each cross-checked against a second, independent source
- + All 2 cross-checked metric pairs agreed within tolerance
- + Current home value observation (Apr 2026) — current for quarterly cadence
- + Current rent observation (Nov 2026) — current for monthly cadence
A data-quality score, not statistical confidence — it measures how well independent public sources agree, how consistent the geography is, and how fresh the data is. Survey margins of error (e.g. ACS MOEs) are not part of it. Every point is earned or lost by a reason listed above, so the score itself is auditable.
How we check this — sources, cross-checks and thresholds
Cross-checks compare two separately produced figures — not our own math re-run — and each check names its own basis. Rent: a current ZIP market-rent-index figure is checked against HUD Small Area FMR where one exists, or against Census ACS gross rent inflated to current dollars with the same ACS rent trend the charts use — a raw ~2021 ACS figure is never compared to a current one. Home value: the check pairs our current FHFA-updated estimate against the raw ACS vintage, so its spread mostly reflects price movement since the ACS measurement period (~2021). These sources measure different things (administrative benchmarks vs. rents reported by existing tenants), so disagreement is information, not error. The report shows the spread rather than averaging it away.
FHFA HPI through 2026-04-01 · ACS 2024 5-year estimates · HUD FY2027 · pulled 2026-11-13T14:14Z
Every headline metric is checked against a second figure, and each check names its own basis. The rent and property-price checks pair genuinely independent datasets (HUD FMR vs Census ACS gross rent; your price vs the county estimate). The home-value check compares our current estimate (ACS county median updated by the FHFA state index) against the raw ACS 2023 median — its spread reflects price movement since the ACS measurement period (~2021), not disagreement between unrelated sources. 'Verified' means the two figures agree within 15%; 'Cross-checked' means they diverge more than 15%; 'Divergent' flags a >2x difference. A spread beyond 35% is too wide to defend a single point — the headline shows the source range instead, flagged 'sources disagree'.
Sutter County housing market — common questions
Is Sutter County, CA a good rental market?
Tough for cash flow. At 23.0x, Sutter County is appreciation-driven — most investors here bank on equity growth, not monthly rent spread.
What is the median home value in Sutter County?
The typical home value in Sutter County is about $440,741 (county-level, Census ACS & FHFA metro HPI), up 0.9% year-over-year, and up 20.7% over five years.
What is the median rent in Sutter County?
The typical rent in Sutter County is about $1,600/mo (county-level, HUD 2-bedroom benchmark bridged from Census ACS gross rent), a current modeled estimate.
Is it cheaper to rent or buy in Sutter County?
Over a 7-year horizon, renting is cheaper in Sutter County by about $51,130 — buying only pays off if prices appreciate faster than projected.
Is Sutter County affordable for homebuyers?
Sutter County's median home value is 5.5x the local median household income — Stretched (>5x — historically expensive vs local incomes).
What is the property tax rate in Sutter County?
Sutter County's effective property tax rate is about 0.75% of home value (Census ACS county effective rate 0.75% ($3,268 tax ÷ $433,500 ACS median), applied to current value), which on a $440,741 median home is roughly $277/mo.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau — ACS ACS 2024 5-year estimates
- FHFA House Price Index
- HUD Fair Market Rent
- FBI Crime Data Explorer
Data vintages: ACS 2024 5-year estimates · HUD FY2027 · FHFA HPI through 2026-04-01. For research only — verify before investing.
Areal provides area-level data for research purposes only — not an appraisal, not financial advice. Verify independently before acting.
Data from published market indexes, FHFA HPI, Census ACS, HUD Fair Market Rent, and FBI CDE — each card discloses its own vintage.