Aspen, Colorado.
Typical home $3,559,803 (+8.3% in a year), asking rent $17,626 (+8.6%). Glenwood Springs, CO metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$11,578 (+163%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $273,327 +8%
- $3,286,476$3,559,803 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $811,427 +30%
- $2,748,376$3,559,803 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.
- Aspen$18,685
- Colorado$2,777
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Aspen, CO rose 8.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Aspen, CO rose 8.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Aspen runs $5,930/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $6,909 in Feb 2025.
That is $23,557 a month against $17,626 rent: a $18,685 mortgage payment, plus $1,061 property tax and $3,811 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Aspen
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$23,557
- Renting$17,626
- Mortgage only$18,685
Property tax · $1,061/mo 0.36% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Pitkin County, CO
Insurance & upkeep · $3,811/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Aspen, Pitkin County, Colorado
Aspen is a city of 7,004 people in Pitkin County. Half its households earn more than $74,033 a year and half less, against $102,645 across Pitkin County; 11% of its people live below the poverty line. 57% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 43% are rented. Unemployment in Pitkin County was 3.3% in August 2026, and the county had 1.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in restaurants and hotels, then schools and health care.
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. Aspen is a small city in the Colorado Rockies, with a population that is small but a lot of homes and rents that are priced far above what most of the country sees. Incomes in town run below the county's, and fewer homes are lived in by their owners than across much of the country. Winters are long and heavy with snow, with a December that stays cold all day, while July is mild and warm.
Work. Many residents work in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, with others in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, or in banks, insurance and property. Among the biggest workplaces in Aspen are Aspen Mountain Ski Area, Aspen Valley Hospital District and Aspen Skiing Company. Commutes are short, and a good number of people work from home. Across Pitkin County, jobs slipped a little last year, and unemployment is slightly higher than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. Aspen Mountain and Aspen Highlands, both ski areas, sit in or beside town, and Snowmass is another ski area a short drive away. In town, the Aspen Art Museum is a place to spend an afternoon indoors. For a longer outing, White River National Forest is a protected area a longer drive away.
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- 4,105households
- 70%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 14 mintypical commute
- 18%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Pitkin County had 17,751 jobs in 2025, 1.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 32° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 76° and lows near 48°. About 171 inches of snow and 24 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Aspen 1SW weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Aspen
- Aspen Mountain Ski Area500
- Aspen Valley Hospital DistrictCritical access hospital468FTE
- Aspen Skiing Company443
- Hotel JeromeHotels, resort, without casinos330
- Aspen Meadows ResortHotels, resort, without casinos143
- Limelight Hotel Aspen89
- King SoopersSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores77
- The Gant166
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 9 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,695 people in all. Hospitals come 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
- AvalanchesVery high
- LightningVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Aspen’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Pitkin County and the Glenwood Springs, CO metro.
Aspen home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Aspen$3,559,803
- Colorado$529,013
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Aspen listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Aspen18.53%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Aspen100
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Aspen15
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Aspen address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Aspen — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Aspen
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 81611 | Aspen | 9,068 | $17,626 | $3,566,651 |
| 81654 | Snowmass | 1,431 | — | $2,873,156 |