Cove, Arkansas.
Typical home $164,609 (-0.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$457 (+112%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,007 -1%
- $165,616$164,609 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $21,588 +15%
- $143,021$164,609 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.
- Cove$864
- Arkansas$1,177
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 25 years.
Typical home values in Cove, AR fell 0.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Cove, Polk County, Arkansas
Cove is a town of 319 people in Polk County. Unemployment in Polk County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Polk County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Cove is a very small town in Polk County, Arkansas, in the Ouachita Mountains country of the western part of the state. Homes here are valued well below what is typical across the country, and household incomes across the county run below the national level. Winters are cold but short of severe, with freezing nights in January, and summers turn properly hot by August.
Work. People in Cove work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, manufacturing, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Polk County, some of the largest workplaces are Nidec Motor Corporation - Mena, Tyson Poultry and Mena Medical Center. Very few residents work from home, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Unemployment across the county is a little lower than a year ago, though the number of jobs has slipped slightly.
Things to do. Hickory Creek and Nancy Branch are both streams a short drive away, good for time by the water. Farther afield, Ouachita National Forest is a large protected area of woods and hills, and Broken Bow Lake is a reservoir, each a longer drive from town.
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- 9%of adults have a degree
- 1%work from home
What people in Polk County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Polk County had 5,758 jobs in 2025, 1.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 51° and lows near 28°; warmest in August, with highs near 91° and lows near 65°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Smithville weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Polk County
- Nidec Motor Corporation - MenaMotors, electric, manufacturing475
- Tyson PoultryPoultry processing413
- Healthy ConnectionsCommunity health centers and clinics, outpatient342
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters302
- Mena School DistrictSchool district295FTE
- Mena Medical CenterGeneral hospital200FTE
- Cossatot River School DistrictSchool district191FTE
- Ouachita River School DistrictSchool district171FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 14 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,987 people in all across the county; Cove 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
- Ice stormsVery high
- LightningRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively 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 Cove’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 Polk County.
Cove home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Cove$164,609
- Arkansas$224,158
- 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.
- Cove13
Zip codes with a Cove address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Cove — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.