Brightwood, Virginia.
Typical home $409,996 (+4.4% in a year). Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,226 (+132%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,215 +4%
- $392,782$409,996 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $86,311 +27%
- $323,685$409,996 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.
- Brightwood$2,152
- Virginia$2,164
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Brightwood, VA rose 4.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Brightwood, Madison County, Virginia
Brightwood, in Madison County, had 1,064 people in the 2020 census. 94% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 6% are rented. Unemployment in Madison County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Madison County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Brightwood is a small community in Madison County, Virginia, where almost everyone lives in a home they own. Typical home values here are well above what the county's household incomes might suggest, and the poverty rate is modest. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn properly warm by July.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, professional and business services, and the building trades. A fair number work from home. Across Madison County, the largest workplaces include Madison County Public Schools, Cardinal Home Center and the National Park Service. Unemployment in the county has held steady compared with a year ago, and the number of jobs has barely changed.
Things to do. Several rivers are a short drive away, including the Hughes River, the Rose River and the Robinson River, which suit anyone who likes to spend time near moving water. A longer drive brings you to Shenandoah National Park and Skyline Drive, the best-known places in the area, along with Luray Caverns, a well-known tourist attraction.
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- 488households
- 10%below the poverty line
- 13%work from home
What people in Madison County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Madison County had 3,099 jobs in 2025, 0.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 44° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 64°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Boston Southeast weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Madison County
- Madison County Public SchoolsSchool district308FTE
- Cardinal Home CenterHome centers, building materials135
- Madison Wood PreserversTreating wood products with creosote or other preservatives110
- Madison County WinesVineyard91
- Food LionGrocery stores74
- National Park ServiceFederal government · Department of the Interior72
- Duct-rite MechanicalHeating, ventilation and air-conditioning contractors35
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 445 people in all across the county; Brightwood has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Brightwood’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 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metro.
Brightwood home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Brightwood$409,996
- Virginia$412,252
- 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.
Zip codes with a Brightwood address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Brightwood — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.