Dayton, Tennessee.
Typical home $260,543 (+2.4% in a year), asking rent $1,200 . Dayton, TN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$755 (+123%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,137 +2%
- $254,406$260,543 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $53,487 +26%
- $207,056$260,543 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.
- Dayton$1,368
- Tennessee$1,737
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Dayton, TN rose 2.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Dayton, Rhea County, Tennessee
Dayton is a city of 7,065 people in Rhea County. Half its households earn more than $49,719 a year and half less, against $55,033 across Rhea County; 22% of its people live below the poverty line. 46% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 54% are rented. Unemployment in Rhea County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 1.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Dayton is a small city in Rhea County, Tennessee, and a place where many people have lived for a long time. Residents are somewhat older than in much of the country, and fewer homes are lived in by their owners than you might expect for a town of this size. Incomes here run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than is typical. Winters are cold but short on snow, summers turn hot, and rain falls plentifully through the year.
Work. Many residents work in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in Dayton are La-Z-Boy, Rhea County Schools and Bryan College-Dayton. Unemployment in Rhea County is close to where it stood a year ago, and the county has added a few more jobs. The usual commute is a modest one, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Laurel-Snow State Natural Area, a protected area, lies in or beside town. The Hiwassee River is a short drive away, and Fall Creek Falls State Park, a larger park known for its waterfalls, is a longer drive. Watts Bar Lake, a reservoir, is also a longer drive away.
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- 3,359households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 22%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rhea County had 12,205 jobs in 2025, 1.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 47° and lows near 28°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 67°. About 2 inches of snow and 59 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Dayton 2SE weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Dayton
- La-Z-BoyChair and couch springs, assembled, manufacturing1,430
- Rhea County SchoolsSchool district675FTE
- Bryan College-DaytonUniversity or college431
- Suburban MfgFurnaces, warm air, manufacturing300
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters285
- Rhea Medical CenterCritical access hospital214FTE
- TenCate GrassThread, all fibers, manufacturing191
- K VA T Food StoresSupermarket161
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 13 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,835 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (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
- Strong windVery high
- LightningVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Dayton’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 Rhea County and the Dayton, TN metro.
Dayton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dayton$260,543
- Tennessee$330,844
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Dayton listings, and the typical home goes pending in 42 days — the market is heating up.
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.
- Dayton28.28%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Dayton70
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Dayton17
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Dayton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dayton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.