Amherst, Texas.
Typical home $86,626 (+7.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$136 (+43%) since Feb 2021.
- 1 year
- Up $6,122 +8%
- $80,504$86,626 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $8,841 -9%
- $95,467$86,626 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.
- Amherst$455
- Texas$1,556
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Amherst, TX rose 7.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Amherst, Lamb County, Texas
Amherst is a city of 678 people in Lamb County. Unemployment in Lamb County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 3.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Lamb County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Amherst is a small city on the South Plains of Texas, in Lamb County, with a population that makes it one of the smaller places in the county. Homes here are priced well below what is typical for the country, and incomes across Lamb County sit a little below what many American households earn. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and very few people work from home.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in farming, and in transport, warehouses and utilities. Across Lamb County, some of the largest workplaces are Littlefield ISD, Continental Dairy Facilities Southwest and the Lamb Healthcare Center. Unemployment across the county is a little lower than a year ago, and the county has added jobs over the past year.
Things to do. Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area a longer drive away, and it is the one nearby place worth a day trip. Winters are cold, with only a little snow, and summers are hot, so the milder seasons in between suit time outdoors. Rainfall is modest through the year.
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- 256households
- 11%of adults have a degree
- 2%work from home
What people in Lamb County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lamb County had 4,078 jobs in 2025, 3.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 54° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 64°. About 7 inches of snow and 18 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Littlefield weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lamb County
- Littlefield ISDSchool district207FTE
- Continental Dairy Facilities SouthwestMilk, concentrated, condensed, dried, evaporated, and powdered, manufacturing164
- M A MortensonConstruction162
- Olton ISDSchool district113FTE
- Lamb Healthcare CenterGeneral hospital108FTE
- Runningwater Draw Care CenterSkilled nursing facilities90
- Xcel EnergyFossil fuel electric power generation79
- Sudan ISDSchool district71FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 590 people in all across the county; Amherst has none of its own. School districts come 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
- HailVery high
- Strong windVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Amherst’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 Lamb County.
Amherst home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Amherst$86,626
- Texas$296,424
- United States$366,157
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.
Zip codes with a Amherst address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Amherst — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.