Bennington, Kansas.
Typical home $233,844 (+9.3% in a year). Salina, KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$684 (+126%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,831 +9%
- $214,014$233,844 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $52,825 +29%
- $181,020$233,844 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.
- Bennington$1,227
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Bennington, KS rose 9.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bennington, Ottawa County, Kansas
Bennington is a city of 622 people in Ottawa County. 75% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 25% are rented. Unemployment in Ottawa County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Bennington is a very small Kansas city, and most homes here are lived in by their owners. Winters are cold, with a fair amount of snow, and summers turn hot. Typical home values are modest, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than you might find in larger college towns.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, manufacturing, and banks and insurance following. Across Ottawa County, some of the largest workplaces are Huyett, which makes nuts and other metal parts, Twin Valley Schools, and Great Plains of Ottawa County, a critical access hospital. Unemployment in the county is a little higher than a year ago, and the number of jobs there has slipped slightly.
Things to do. Rock City, Kansas, a park, and Fort Buchanan are both a short drive away. For a longer outing, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home is a museum a longer drive away, and Rolling Hills Zoo is also a longer drive away.
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- 276households
- 24%of adults have a degree
- 23 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ottawa County had 1,274 jobs in 2025, 1.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 68°. About 18 inches of snow and 32 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Minneapolis weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ottawa County
- HuyettNuts, metal, manufacturing141
- Abilene MachineHarvesting machinery and equipment, agriculture, manufacturing135
- Twin Valley SchoolsSchool district94FTE
- North Ottawa County SchoolsSchool district84FTE
- Recover CareSkilled nursing facilities65
- Great Plains of Ottawa CountyCritical access hospital63FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 459 people in all across the county; Bennington has one of its own. 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
- Ice stormsVery high
- HailVery high
- Strong windVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bennington’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 Ottawa County and the Salina, KS metro.
Bennington home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bennington$233,844
- Kansas$246,055
- 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.
- Bennington10
Zip codes with a Bennington address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bennington — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.