Bartow, Florida.
Typical home $276,179 (-0.1% in a year), asking rent $1,785 (+4.5%). Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$809 (+126%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $370 -0%
- $276,550$276,179 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $49,534 +22%
- $226,645$276,179 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.
- Bartow$1,450
- Florida$1,970
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Bartow, FL fell 0.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Bartow, FL rose 4.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Bartow runs $127/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $406 in May 2024.
That is $1,912 a month against $1,785 rent: a $1,450 mortgage payment, plus $167 property tax and $296 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Bartow
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$1,912
- Renting$1,785
- Mortgage only$1,450
Property tax · $167/mo 0.73% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Polk County, FL
Insurance & upkeep · $296/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 Bartow, Polk County, Florida
Bartow is a city of 19,309 people in Polk County. Half its households earn more than $68,178 a year and half less, against $65,978 across Polk County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 66% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 34% are rented. Unemployment in Polk County was 5.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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. Bartow is a small city and the seat of Polk County, with a population that is a little younger than the country as a whole. Household incomes run somewhat above the county's, though a fair number of residents live below the poverty line, and most homes are lived in by their owners rather than rented. Winters are mild and summers are hot, with little or no snow and a good deal of rain across the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, in shops, and in government. Among the largest workplaces in Bartow are Polk Schools, The Mosaic Company and Publix Super Markets. A four-year degree is held by fewer adults here than is typical nationally, and the usual commute is a moderate one.
Things to do. Close to home, the Polk County Historical Museum and Wonderhouse, a tourist attraction, are in or beside town, and Lake Hancock is a short drive away. For a longer outing, Bok Tower Gardens is a botanical garden within a longer drive, and Legoland Florida, an amusement park, is also a longer drive away.
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- 7,439households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Polk County had 264,981 jobs in 2025, 1.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 73° and lows near 50°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 73°. About 51 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Bartow 1SE weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bartow
- Polk SchoolsSchool district13,596FTE
- The Mosaic CompanyAmmonium phosphates manufacturing308
- Peace River Citrus ProductsFruits, frozen, manufacturing273
- AAF Flanders BartowAir purification equipment, stationary, manufacturing238
- Publix Super MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores197
- Ideal Cabinetry - 210 CenturyCabinets, kitchen, stock or custom wood, manufacturing174
- Maintenance & Reliability TechnologiesService machinery and equipment repair and maintenance services166
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter127
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,021 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (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
- Strong windVery high
- HurricanesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bartow’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Polk County and the Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL metro.
Bartow home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bartow$276,179
- Florida$375,361
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Bartow listings, and the typical home goes pending in 37 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.
- Bartow34.56%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bartow106
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Bartow21
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Bartow$284,461
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Bartow address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bartow — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.