Carnation, Washington.
Typical home $967,804 (-1.3% in a year), asking rent $2,645 . Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,778 (+121%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $12,760 -1%
- $980,564$967,804 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $110,578 +13%
- $857,226$967,804 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.
- Carnation$5,080
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 29 years.
Typical home values in Carnation, WA fell 1.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Carnation, King County, Washington
Carnation is a city of 2,158 people in King County. Half its households earn more than $152,763 a year and half less, against $124,746 across King County; 2% of its people live below the poverty line. 81% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 19% are rented. Unemployment in King County was 4.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in professional services, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Carnation is a small city in King County, where people live close to one another and to the countryside around. Residents are younger than in many small towns, and far more homes are lived in by their owners than across much of the country. Household incomes run well above the county's, very few people live below the poverty line, and many adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cool and wet, with only a little snow, and summers are warm.
Work. Residents work mainly in professional and business services, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. A good share work from home, and the typical commute for everyone else is fairly long. Across King County, some of the largest workplaces are The Boeing Company, the University of Washington-Seattle Campus and Seattle Children's Hospital.
Things to do. The Tolt River runs in or beside town, a natural spot for time by the water. A short drive away are Snoqualmie Falls, a waterfall, and Lake Sammamish, a lake. For a bigger outing, Lake Washington and the Space Needle, a well-known tourist attraction, are a longer drive away.
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- 758households
- 48%of adults have a degree
- 2%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 28%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. King County had 1,436,484 jobs in 2025, 0.9% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 46° and lows near 36°; warmest in August, with highs near 77° and lows near 54°. About 4 inches of snow and 63 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Snoqualmie Falls weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in King County
- The Boeing CompanyAircraft manufacturing32,992
- University of Washington-Seattle CampusUniversity or college22,819
- The Boeing CompanyAircraft manufacturing13,303
- The Boeing CompanyAircraft maintenance and repair services9,989
- Seattle Children's HospitalChildren's hospital9,898FTE
- Zillow GroupSoftware publishers6,919
- University of Washington MED CTRGeneral hospital6,903FTE
- Seattle School District No. 1School district6,303FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1,843 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 397,622 people in all across the county; Carnation has none of its own. 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
- AvalanchesVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively 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 Carnation’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 King County and the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
Carnation home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Carnation$967,804
- Washington$587,533
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Carnation 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.
- Carnation34.55%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Carnation43
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Carnation13
Zip codes with a Carnation address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Carnation — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.