Chinook, Montana.
Typical home $217,032 (-0.1% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$699 (+159%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $209 -0%
- $217,241$217,032 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $59,074 +37%
- $157,958$217,032 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.
- Chinook$1,139
- Montana$2,453
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Chinook, MT fell 0.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Chinook, Blaine County, Montana
Chinook is a city of 1,185 people in Blaine County. Half its households earn more than $61,750 a year and half less, against $64,813 across Blaine County; 8% of its people live below the poverty line. 80% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Blaine County was 2.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Chinook is a small city in Blaine County, Montana, and nearly everyone knows everyone else. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and incomes run a little below the county's. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm in July; the year brings little rain or melted snow, so the climate is dry.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, the building trades, and farming, forestry and mining also employing many. Across Blaine County, the largest workplaces include Fort Belknap Health Center, the Indian Health Service and Harlem Elem Schools. Commutes are short, and a fair number of people work from home.
Things to do. Battle Creek, a river, is a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to Lake Thibadeau National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area, and to Big Sandy Creek, another river. The Too Close For Comfort Site, an archaeological site, is also a longer drive away.
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- 581households
- 36%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 11 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Blaine County had 1,325 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 27° and lows near 4°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 54°. About 13 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Chinook weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Blaine County
- Fort Belknap Health CenterCritical access hospital162FTE
- Indian Health ServiceFederal government · Department of Health and Human Services87
- Harlem Elem SchoolsSchool district74FTE
- Sweet Memorial Nursing HomeNursing homes72
- Aaniiih Nakoda CollegeUniversity or college60
- Hays-Lodge Pole K-12 Schls SchoolsSchool district56FTE
- Chinook Elem SchoolsSchool district39FTE
- Harlem H S SchoolsSchool district27FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 95 people in all across the county; Chinook has two of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Cold wavesVery high
- LightningVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Chinook’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 Blaine County.
Chinook home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Chinook$217,032
- Montana$467,275
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Chinook9
Zip codes with a Chinook address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Chinook — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.