Berea, Kentucky.
Typical home $250,114 (+0.6% in a year), asking rent $923 . Richmond-Berea, KY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$729 (+125%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,605 +1%
- $248,509$250,114 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $57,229 +30%
- $192,885$250,114 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.
- Berea$1,313
- 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 Berea, KY rose 0.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Berea, Madison County, Kentucky
Berea is a city of 15,539 people in Madison County. Half its households earn more than $59,495 a year and half less, against $63,351 across Madison County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 59% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 41% are rented. Unemployment in Madison County was 4.8% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Berea is a small city with a younger population than much of the country, shaped in part by the college at its center. Incomes run a little below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than one might expect, while most homes are lived in by their owners. Winters are cold and summers are warm, with January the coldest month and July the warmest.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Berea are Berea College, Astemo Americas, which makes shock absorbers, and Saint Joseph Berea, a critical access hospital. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many college towns, and the typical commute is short to moderate, with some people working from home.
Things to do. Roy Kidd Stadium, a stadium, and Round Hill, an archaeological site, are both a short drive away. For a longer outing, Camp Nelson National Monument is a protected area that takes a longer drive to reach, as is Lake Linville, a lake in the surrounding countryside.
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- 5,519households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Madison County had 36,855 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 45° and lows near 29°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 67°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Berea College weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Berea
- Astemo Americas, LTD (Berea Plant 1)Shock absorbers, automotive, truck, and bus, manufacturing912
- Berea CollegeUniversity or college651
- SIMOS Insourcing SolutionsStaffing409
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters347
- Saint Joseph BereaCritical access hospital168FTE
- Berea Independent SchoolsSchool district167FTE
- NovelisIngot, aluminum, made in integrated secondary smelting and rolling mills148
- KI USAJob stampings, automotive, metal, manufacturing121
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 13 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,618 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Tornadoesrelatively high in parts of BereaRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Berea’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 Madison County and the Richmond-Berea, KY metro.
Berea home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Berea$250,114
- 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 Berea listings, and the typical home goes pending in 19 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.
- Berea28.81%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Berea19
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Berea131
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Berea40
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Berea$253,240
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Berea97.57%
Zip codes with a Berea address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Berea — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.