Bristol, Virginia.
Typical home $200,801 (-1.6% in a year), asking rent $1,399 . Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$606 (+135%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,260 -2%
- $204,061$200,801 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $51,497 +34%
- $149,304$200,801 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.
- Bristol$1,054
- Virginia$2,164
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Bristol, VA fell 1.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Owning the typical home in Bristol runs $47/mo less than renting one. The gap peaked at $152 in Mar 2026.
That is $1,352 a month against $1,399 rent: a $1,054 mortgage payment, plus $83 property tax and $215 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Bristol
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$1,352
- Renting$1,399
- Mortgage only$1,054
Property tax · $83/mo 0.50% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Washington County, VA
Insurance & upkeep · $215/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 Bristol, Washington County, Virginia
Bristol is a city of 17,219 people in Washington County. Half its households earn more than $50,404 a year and half less, against $64,552 across Washington County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 64% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 36% are rented. Unemployment in Bristol was 4.2% in August 2026, and Washington County had 3.5% more 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. Bristol is a small city where most homes are lived in by their owners, though renting is common too. Residents are somewhat older than the typical American, incomes run below those across Washington County, and a four-year degree is held by a minority of adults. Winters are cold and summers warm, with rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, restaurants, hotels and entertainment close behind. The largest workplaces in Bristol include Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Bristol, Bristol City Public Schools and Amazon. Unemployment is a little higher than a year ago, while Washington County has added jobs over the past year, and the typical commute is short.
Things to do. The Birthplace of Country Music Museum and Bristol Municipal Stadium are in or beside town. Bristol Motor Speedway, a race track, is a short drive away. For a longer drive, Boone Lake is a reservoir with room for time on the water.
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- 7,226households
- 25%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Washington County had 21,147 jobs in 2025, 3.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 45° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 62°. About 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Abingdon 3S weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bristol
- Hard Rock Hotel and Casino BristolHotels, casino1,250
- Bristol City Public SchoolsSchool district501FTE
- AmazonCouriers and express delivery services341
- City of BristolCity and town managers' offices340
- Shearer's Foods - BVAPotato chips manufacturing234
- Strategic Growth LogisticsCourier services168
- NHC HealthCare, BristolSkilled nursing facilities145
- Electro-MechanicalSwitchgear and switchgear accessories manufacturing144
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 18 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,155 people in all. School districts come 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of BristolRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively 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 Bristol’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 Washington County and the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA metro.
Bristol home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bristol$200,801
- Virginia$412,252
- 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 Bristol listings, and the typical home goes pending in 35 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.
- Bristol30.17%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Bristol35
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bristol208
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Bristol51
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Bristol$181,988
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Bristol96.06%
Zip codes with a Bristol address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bristol — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Bristol
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24201 | Bristol | 15,903 | $1,366 | $175,455 |
| 24202 | Bristol | 12,389 | — | $250,471 |