Bardstown, Kentucky.
Typical home $260,795 (+3.4% in a year), asking rent $1,011 . Bardstown, KY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$792 (+137%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,471 +3%
- $252,324$260,795 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $62,928 +32%
- $197,867$260,795 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.
- Bardstown$1,369
- Kentucky$1,212
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Bardstown, KY rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky
Bardstown is a city of 13,567 people in Nelson County. Half its households earn more than $51,381 a year and half less, against $69,562 across Nelson County; 15% of its people live below the poverty line. 61% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 39% are rented. Unemployment in Nelson County was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Bardstown is a small city and the seat of Nelson County, with a median age a little younger than many towns its size. Incomes here run well below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than most would expect in a place with steady work. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though a good number rent, and winters are cold and fairly snowy while summers turn hot.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels close behind. Among the largest workplaces in Bardstown are the distillery company Sazerac, the packaging manufacturer American Fuji Seal, and the Bardstown Independent Schools. Most people have a short commute, and very few work from home.
Things to do. Several museums sit in or beside town, including the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History and My Old Kentucky Home State Park. A short drive away, the Chaplin River offers a spot to get out on the water. For a longer trip, Bernheim Forest and Arboretum is a botanical garden worth the drive.
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- 5,677households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Nelson County had 18,432 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 43° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 66°. About 12 inches of snow and 52 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Bardstown 5E weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bardstown
- American Fuji SealFilm, plastics, packaging, manufacturing585
- AutokinitonJob stampings, automotive, metal, manufacturing504
- SazeracDistilleries500
- Bardstown Independent SchoolsSchool district468FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters353
- The Bardstown Bourbon CompanyDistilleries306
- Flowers Baking Company of BardstownCommercial bakeries284
- Flaget Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital254FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 40 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,271 people in all. 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
- LightningVery high
- Strong windVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bardstown’s census tracts, 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 Nelson County and the Bardstown, KY metro.
Bardstown home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bardstown$260,795
- Kentucky$230,909
- 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 3 Bardstown listings, and the typical home goes pending in 20 days — 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.
- Bardstown29.95%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Bardstown20
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bardstown150
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Bardstown42
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Bardstown$260,143
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Bardstown98.49%
Zip codes with a Bardstown address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bardstown — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.