Baxter, Kentucky.
Typical home $99,218 (-9.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$283 (+119%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $10,743 -10%
- $109,961$99,218 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $23,555 +31%
- $75,663$99,218 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.
- Baxter$521
- 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 Baxter, KY fell 9.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Baxter, Harlan County, Kentucky
The Census does not count Baxter on its own, so the figures here are Harlan County's. Half the county's households earn more than $41,693 a year and half less; 27% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 72% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 28% are rented. Unemployment in Harlan County was 5.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Harlan County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Baxter is a small town in Harlan County, in the hills of eastern Kentucky. Across the county, most homes are lived in by their owners, and many households earn less than the typical American household. Neighbors tend to know one another, and the town keeps the pace of a place where life is shaped by its surroundings. Across the county, more residents live in poverty than across the country as a whole.
Work. Most jobs around Baxter are in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in the building trades, and in government. Fewer people were out of work this year than last, though the county had slightly fewer jobs in the most recent year than the one before. Fewer adults hold a college degree than across the country, and few people work from home, so most workers travel to a job outside the house.
Things to do. Kentenia State Forest and Blanton Forest are both protected areas a short drive away, good places for walking among the trees. Martins Fork Lake, a reservoir also a short drive away, offers a quieter outing by the water. For a look at the region's past, the Hensley Settlement museum is a longer drive away.
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- 10,731households
- 40.9median age
- 13%of adults have a degree
- 27%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What people in Harlan County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Harlan County had 6,247 jobs in 2025, 0.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 45° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 65°. About 52 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Baxter weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Harlan County
- Harlan County SchoolsSchool district638FTE
- Harlan ARH HospitalConvalescent homes or convalescent hospitals402
- Harlan ARHGeneral hospital315FTE
- Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical CollegeTwo-year college277
- WalmartDiscount department stores173
- Harlan Health and Rehabilitation CenterNursing homes154
- K VA T Food StoresSupermarket124
- Southeastern Ky Rehabilitation IndustriesCut and sew apparel contractors122
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,543 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Harlan County, 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 Harlan County.
Baxter home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Baxter$99,218
- Kentucky$230,909
- 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.
- Baxter7
Zip codes with a Baxter address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Baxter — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Baxter
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40806 | Baxter | 1,732 | — | $108,074 |
| 40865 | Putney | 426 | — | $95,850 |