San Bernardino Mountains, California · Running Springs
The junction between Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear, with its own ski hill at Snow Valley — and the widest price spread of any Rim community.
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Active Running Springs listings from the MLS, updated in real time.
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Running Springs sits where the road to Lake Arrowhead meets the road to Big Bear. That position is the whole argument.
Active listings here run from about $169,000 to just under $4,000,000. That is the widest spread of any community on this part of the mountain, and it tells you something real: Running Springs holds both the cheapest cabins on the Rim and a handful of genuinely substantial properties, with comparatively little in between.
In market size it is close to Crestline and far deeper than Twin Peaks. If your budget is at the bottom of the mountain market, this and Crestline are the two places to look first.
Snow Valley sits on Running Springs' doorstep. It is the third ski area on this mountain alongside Big Bear's two, and it is routinely overlooked by buyers who assume skiing means Big Bear.
That matters for two kinds of buyer. If you ski and want the shortest possible drive from the valley, Running Springs gets you to a lift faster than Big Bear does. And if you are weighing short-term rental income, proximity to a resort is a demand driver here in a way it is not in Crestline or Twin Peaks — though the rental market is considerably thinner than Big Bear's, and you should not model it on Big Bear's numbers.
Running Springs sits higher than Crestline and lower than Big Bear, on the Highway 18 and 330 junction. Living here means you are roughly half an hour from Lake Arrowhead's village and under an hour from Big Bear in normal conditions — genuinely useful if you want options rather than one town's amenities.
The flip side is that it is a pass-through town. There is less of a village core than Arrowhead or Big Bear Lake, and a fair amount of traffic moves through on the way somewhere else. Whether that reads as convenient or as a drawback depends entirely on what you want from the place. Spend a weekend before you decide.
Highway 330 in winter. It is the main route up from the valley and it closes or chains up in weather. If you will commute, understand that properly.
Septic versus sewer, and the condition of whichever applies.
County short-term rental rules, which are not Big Bear's rules. Verify for the specific address.
Fire insurance — get an actual quote on the parcel before contingencies.
Big Bear is my home market and that is where I would send you for the deepest rental market and the biggest resorts. But Running Springs is on the same MLS, I work it, and for a buyer who wants a ski hill nearby at a lower entry price — or who genuinely cannot decide between Arrowhead and Big Bear — sitting at the junction is a reasonable answer rather than a compromise.
Straight answers from a local Big Bear Broker Associate.
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Same Mountain, Different Town
That is exactly the buyer Running Springs suits. Tell me how you would use the place and I will give you a straight comparison — including the cases where one of the two bigger towns is simply the better buy.
Tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll reach out within 24 hours — or call/text 909.744.2190.
