Alva, Oklahoma.
Typical home $107,399 (+7.1% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$254 (+82%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,132 +7%
- $100,268$107,399 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $10,120 +10%
- $97,280$107,399 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Alva$564
- Oklahoma$1,159
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 35 years.
Typical home values in Alva, OK rose 7.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Alva, Woods County, Oklahoma
Alva is a city of 5,028 people in Woods County. Half its households earn more than $40,709 a year and half less, against $53,275 across Woods County; 26% of its people live below the poverty line. 50% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 50% are rented. Unemployment in Woods County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 2.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then farming.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Alva is a small city and the Woods County seat, with a young population for a place its size, likely because of the university. Incomes run below the county's, more residents live below the poverty line than is typical, and renters and owners are about evenly split. Homes are modestly priced, and most people have a short drive to work, with almost no one working from home.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by farming, forestry and mining, shops, and restaurants and hotels. Among the largest workplaces in Alva are Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Walmart and Share Medical Center. Unemployment in the county is low, though the county has fewer jobs than it did a year earlier.
Things to do. Winters are cold, with a little snow, and summers get very hot. The Medicine Lodge River, a river, and Alabaster Caverns State Park, a protected area, are each a longer drive away. Great Salt Plains Lake, a reservoir, is also a longer drive away.
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- 2,135households
- 40%of adults have a degree
- 26%below the poverty line
- 11 mintypical commute
- 1%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Woods County had 3,257 jobs in 2025, 2.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 47° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 70°. About 11 inches of snow and 30 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Alva 1W weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Alva
- Northwestern Oklahoma State UniversityUniversity or college332
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters171
- BeadlesNursing homes166
- Alva SchoolsSchool district164FTE
- Share Medical CenterCritical access hospital66FTE
- Northwest Technology Center-AlvaCareer school41
- Compass Group29
- Atwoods 55Retail store23
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 389 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Cold wavesVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Alva’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Woods County.
Alva home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Alva$107,399
- Oklahoma$220,801
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Alva listings — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Alva18.06%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Alva63
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Alva13
Zip codes with a Alva address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Alva — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.