Ariel, Washington.
Typical home $564,765 (+2.9% in a year). Longview, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,749 (+144%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,720 +3%
- $549,045$564,765 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $125,419 +29%
- $439,346$564,765 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.
- Ariel$2,964
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Ariel, WA rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ariel, Cowlitz County, Washington
The Census does not count Ariel on its own, so the figures here are Cowlitz County's. Half the county's households earn more than $76,531 a year and half less; 12% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 68% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 32% are rented. Unemployment in Cowlitz County was 5.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Cowlitz County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ariel is a small community in Cowlitz County, in the southwest corner of Washington State. Across the county, most homes are lived in by their owners, and the typical resident is in the middle of adult life. Winters are cold and snowy, summers are warm, and rain falls for much of the year, with colder winters than most of the country.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, or in manufacturing, retail and professional and business services. Unemployment has eased over the past year, though the number of jobs dipped slightly in the most recent year. Few residents work from home, so most people commute to a workplace each day.
Things to do. Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, one of the best known protected areas in the Northwest, lies a longer drive away. Closer by are Lake Merwin, a reservoir a short drive off, and Merrill Lake, a lake that is also a short drive away.
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- 43,943households
- 41.5median age
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What people in Cowlitz County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cowlitz County had 41,077 jobs in 2025, 0.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 44° and lows near 34°; warmest in August, with highs near 82° and lows near 54°. About 16 inches of snow and 115 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cougar East weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cowlitz County
- JH KellyMechanical contractors1,411
- St. John Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,308FTE
- WestRock LongviewPulp & paper non newsprint867
- Longview School DistrictSchool district783FTE
- Kelso School DistrictSchool district627FTE
- Lower Columbia CollegeUniversity or college602
- Nippon Dynawave PackagingWood pulp manufacturing586
- north pacific paper companyPulp mills producing newsprint paper495
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 113 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 14,104 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- Volcanic activityRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Cowlitz County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Cowlitz County and the Longview, WA metro.
Ariel home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ariel$564,765
- Washington$587,533
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Ariel13
Zip codes with a Ariel address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ariel — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.