Big Spring, Texas.
Typical home $140,457 (+4.5% in a year), asking rent $1,452 (+5.9%). Big Spring, TX metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$146 (+25%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,045 +4%
- $134,412$140,457 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $26,281 -16%
- $166,738$140,457 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.
- Big Spring$737
- Texas$1,556
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Big Spring, TX rose 4.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Big Spring, TX rose 5.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Big Spring runs $453/mo less than renting one. The gap peaked at $550 in Mar 2026.
That is $999 a month against $1,452 rent: a $737 mortgage payment, plus $111 property tax and $150 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Big Spring
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$999
- Renting$1,452
- Mortgage only$737
Property tax · $111/mo 0.95% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Howard County, TX
Insurance & upkeep · $150/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 Big Spring, Howard County, Texas
Big Spring is a city of 26,144 people in Howard County. Half its households earn more than $67,581 a year and half less, against $69,649 across Howard County; 17% of its people live below the poverty line. 65% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 35% are rented. Unemployment in Big Spring was 4.7% in August 2026, and Howard County had 6.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then transport and warehouses.
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. Big Spring is a small West Texas city and the seat of Howard County. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and typical home values and rents run modest. Household incomes sit a little below the county's, and fewer adults here hold a four-year degree than in most American towns. Winters are cool and mostly dry, with only a dusting of snow, and summers are hot, with July afternoons that can be very hot indeed.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in transport, warehouses and utilities, in shops, and in restaurants and hotels. The largest workplaces in town include the Veterans Health Administration, Big Spring ISD and Howard College. Jobs across the county have grown scarcer over the past year, and unemployment is a touch higher than it was a year ago. Most people get to work in a fairly short drive, and very few work from home.
Things to do. Big Spring State Park is a protected area in or beside town, and Hangar 25 Air Museum is a museum in the same easy reach. A short drive away, the North Concho River offers a stretch of running water in a dry part of the state.
Report a mistake
- 9,061households
- 13%of adults have a degree
- 17%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Howard County had 11,977 jobs in 2025, 6.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 58° and lows near 31°; warmest in July, with highs near 96° and lows near 72°. About 2 inches of snow and 20 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Big Spring weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Big Spring
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs561
- Big Spring ISDSchool district557FTE
- Howard CollegeTwo-year college469
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters291
- H-E-BRetail196
- Scenic Mountain Medical CenterGeneral hospital166FTE
- Touchstone CommunitiesConvalescent homes or convalescent hospitals145
- Bureau of Prisons/federal Prison SystemFederal government · Department of Justice104
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 12 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,210 people in all. Federal offices come from OPM's federal workforce data (2026), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (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
- HailVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Big Spring’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 Howard County and the Big Spring, TX metro.
Big Spring home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Big Spring$140,457
- Texas$296,424
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Big Spring listings — 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.
- Big Spring22.46%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Big Spring178
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Big Spring41
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Big Spring$202,639
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Big Spring address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Big Spring — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.