Centralia, Kansas.
Typical home $176,603 (+10.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$566 (+157%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,991 +11%
- $159,611$176,603 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $51,906 +42%
- $124,697$176,603 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.
- Centralia$927
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Centralia, KS rose 10.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Centralia, Nemaha County, Kansas
Centralia is a city of 485 people in Nemaha County. Half its households earn more than $67,188 a year and half less, against $77,348 across Nemaha County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 80% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Nemaha County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Centralia is a very small city in Nemaha County, Kansas, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes run below the county's, and homes here are priced within reach of many buyers. Winters are cold, with January highs staying near freezing and lows well below it, and snow is a regular part of the season. Summers turn hot, especially in July, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and restaurants and hotels also employing many. Commutes are short, and some people work from home. Across Nemaha County, some of the largest workplaces are Koch and Co, a cabinet and wood manufacturer, Apostolic Christian Home, which runs group homes with nursing care, and Prairie Hills Schools, a school district.
Things to do. The nearest well-known places are the Delaware River and the Little Blue River, both rivers a longer drive away. Alcove Springs, a waterfall, and Fort Plymouth, a fort, are also a longer drive away. These are trips for a day out rather than an errand across town.
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- 191households
- 6%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Nemaha County had 5,766 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 17°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 67°. About 33 inches of snow and 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Centralia weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Nemaha County
- Koch and CoCabinets, wood, manufacturing285
- Apostolic Christian HomeGroup homes for the disabled with nursing care190
- Prairie Hills SchoolsSchool district148FTE
- Nemaha Central SchoolsSchool district138FTE
- Alphia - BernPet food, dog and cat, manufacturing136
- Wenger Manufacturing, Inc. - 714 Main StFood choppers, grinders, mixers, and slicers manufacturing136
- Nemaha Valley Community HospitalCritical access hospital117FTE
- Koch and CoCabinets, wood, manufacturing114
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 21 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,763 people in all across the county; Centralia has none of its own. 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
- TornadoesVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Centralia’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Nemaha County.
Centralia home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Centralia$176,603
- Kansas$246,055
- 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 Centralia address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Centralia — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.