Broken Bow, Nebraska.
Typical home $176,440 (+8.5% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$456 (+97%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,853 +9%
- $162,587$176,440 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $25,422 +17%
- $151,018$176,440 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.
- Broken Bow$926
- Nebraska$1,461
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 22 years.
Typical home values in Broken Bow, NE rose 8.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Broken Bow, Custer County, Nebraska
Broken Bow is a city of 3,506 people in Custer County. Half its households earn more than $60,129 a year and half less, against $67,906 across Custer County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 57% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 43% are rented. Unemployment in Custer County was 2.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Broken Bow is a small city and the seat of Custer County, in central Nebraska. Residents are somewhat younger than in many small towns, and incomes run below the county's. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and the typical home value is modest.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, professional and business services, and manufacturing also employing sizable numbers. Among the largest workplaces in town are Broken Bow Public Schools, Jennie M. Melham Memorial Med Center and Adams Land and Cattle. Commutes are very short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and snow is a regular part of the season. Summers are warm, with July the warmest month, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow. Everyday errands and daily life are close at hand in a town this size.
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- 1,509households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 9 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Custer County had 4,544 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 60°. About 30 inches of snow and 23 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Broken Bow West weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Broken Bow
- Broken BOW Public SchoolsSchool district116FTE
- Jennie M. Melham Memorial MED CenterCritical access hospital90FTE
- the grocery kartGrocery stores75
- Adams Land and CattleBeef cattle feedlots55
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 231 people in all. 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Broken Bow’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Custer County.
Broken Bow home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Broken Bow$176,440
- Nebraska$278,299
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Broken Bow 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.
- Broken Bow22.04%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Broken Bow26
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Broken Bow address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Broken Bow — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.