Cheney, Washington.
Typical home $415,627 (-0.5% in a year), asking rent $1,343 (+3.6%). Spokane-Spokane Valley, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,155 (+113%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $2,196 -1%
- $417,824$415,627 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $30,291 +8%
- $385,336$415,627 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.
- Cheney$2,182
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 46 years.
Typical home values in Cheney, WA fell 0.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Cheney, WA rose 3.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Cheney runs $1,573/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,838 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,916 a month against $1,343 rent: a $2,182 mortgage payment, plus $290 property tax and $445 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Cheney
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$2,916
- Renting$1,343
- Mortgage only$2,182
Property tax · $290/mo 0.84% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Spokane County, WA
Insurance & upkeep · $445/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 Cheney, Spokane County, Washington
Cheney is a city of 13,255 people in Spokane County. Half its households earn more than $54,503 a year and half less, against $78,582 across Spokane County; 31% of its people live below the poverty line. 35% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 65% are rented. Unemployment in Spokane County was 4.1% 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 restaurants and hotels.
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. Cheney is a small city in Spokane County with a much younger population than most American towns, which fits its role as a college town. Incomes run well below the county's, and poverty is more common than across the county. Most homes are rented rather than owned, and typical home values and rents are both high compared with what local incomes would suggest. A good share of adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops, and professional and business services. Eastern Washington University is the largest workplace in Cheney, with Safeway and Cheney Care Center also among the biggest. Across Spokane County, unemployment is a little lower than a year ago, and the number of jobs has barely changed. A typical commute is fairly short, and only a small number of people work from home.
Things to do. Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area a short drive away, a good place for walking and watching wildlife. A longer drive brings you to Riverfront Park in Spokane, an amusement park, and to Manito Park and Botanical Gardens, a botanical garden. Winters are cold, summers are warm, and the year brings a modest amount of rain and melted snow.
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- 4,772households
- 38%of adults have a degree
- 31%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Spokane County had 243,704 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 35° and lows near 21°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 45°. About 18 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Spokane Ssw weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cheney
- Eastern Washington UniversityUniversity or college1,449
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores103
- Cheney Care CenterSkilled nursing facilities88
- CheneyMail and parcel delivery33
- ADM Milling Co32
- Jarms HardwareHome centers, building materials21
- Les SchwabAutomotive tire dealers21
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 298 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24). 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Cheney’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 Spokane County and the Spokane-Spokane Valley, WA metro.
Cheney home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Cheney$415,627
- Washington$587,533
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Cheney listings, and the typical home goes pending in 23 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.
- Cheney28.44%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Cheney23
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Cheney112
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Cheney21
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Cheney address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Cheney — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Cheney
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99004 | Cheney | 22,871 | $1,345 | $416,660 |
| 99170 | Rosalia | 926 | — | $316,852 |