Covington, Washington.
Typical home $646,823 (-2.0% in a year), asking rent $2,491 (+6.7%). Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,797 (+112%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $13,458 -2%
- $660,281$646,823 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $59,417 +10%
- $587,406$646,823 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.
- Covington$3,395
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 36 years.
Typical home values in Covington, WA fell 2.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Covington, WA rose 6.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Covington runs $2,043/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,555 in Jan 2025.
That is $4,533 a month against $2,491 rent: a $3,395 mortgage payment, plus $446 property tax and $692 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Covington
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$4,533
- Renting$2,491
- Mortgage only$3,395
Property tax · $446/mo 0.83% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for King County, WA
Insurance & upkeep · $692/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 Covington, King County, Washington
Covington is a city of 20,777 people in King County. Half its households earn more than $134,502 a year and half less, against $124,746 across King County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 79% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 21% 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 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. Covington is a city in King County where most homes are lived in by their owners, and the share of people living below the poverty line is small. Household incomes run above the county's, and residents are somewhat younger than in many American towns. A good many adults hold a four-year degree, and a fair number work from home.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, restaurants and hotels, and professional and business services also employing many. Some of the largest workplaces in Covington are Costco Wholesale, Multicare Covington Medical Center and Fred Meyer Stores. The typical commute is a fairly long one, which fits a place where many people travel elsewhere in the region for work.
Things to do. Lake Tapps, a reservoir, is a short drive away and is the nearest water for an outing. Farther off, a longer drive away, are Lake Washington and the Space Needle, one of the best known tourist attractions in the region. Winters are cold and wet here, with summers that are mild to warm, so the lakes are best suited to the warmer months.
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- 7,377households
- 37%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 33 mintypical commute
- 19%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 44° and lows near 32°; warmest in August, with highs near 77° and lows near 52°. About 60 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Landsburg weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Covington
- Costco WholesaleWholesale grocer419
- Multicare Covington Medical CenterGeneral hospital286FTE
- Fred Meyer StoresWarehouse clubs and supercenters262
- WalmartDiscount department stores220
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores121
- Covington BranchMail and parcel delivery69
- Kohl's57
- Bonneville Power AdministrationElectric power control38
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,624 people in all. Hospitals come 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
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Covington’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 King County and the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
Covington home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Covington$646,823
- Washington$587,533
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 2 Covington 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.
- Covington44.52%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Covington63
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Covington16
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Covington$635,952
- United States$370,717
Zip codes with a Covington address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Covington — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.