Dolores, Colorado.
Typical home $472,858 (+2.2% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,334 (+116%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,038 +2%
- $462,820$472,858 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $75,693 +19%
- $397,164$472,858 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.
- Dolores$2,482
- Colorado$2,777
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Dolores, CO rose 2.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Dolores, Dolores County, Colorado
Dolores is a town of 885 people in Dolores County. Unemployment in Dolores County was 5.4% in August 2026, and the county had 3.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Dolores County work in schools and health care, then government.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Dolores is a very small town in southwest Colorado, the kind where people tend to know one another. Winters are cold, with real snowfall, and summers are hot, while the year as a whole is fairly dry. Homes here are valued well above what the county's incomes might suggest, and poverty is not widespread among residents.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and others work in government, professional and business services, or the building trades. The biggest workplace across Dolores County is the Dolores County School District RE-2J. Jobs across the county have shrunk a little over the past year, and unemployment has risen compared with a year earlier.
Things to do. The Anasazi Heritage Center, a museum, is in or beside town. McPhee Reservoir and Summit Reservoir are both a short drive away, and are good for time on the water. For a longer outing, Mesa Verde National Park is a longer drive away, and Cliff Palace, one of the best known archaeological sites in the region, lies within it.
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- 7%below the poverty line
What people in Dolores County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Dolores County had 526 jobs in 2025, 3.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 43° and lows near 17°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 57°. About 33 inches of snow and 12 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cortez weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Dolores County
- Dolores County School District RE-2JSchool district56FTE
School districts come from the Common Core of Data (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
- LightningVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- AvalanchesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Dolores’ 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 Dolores County.
Dolores home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dolores$472,858
- Colorado$529,013
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Dolores 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.
- Dolores17.98%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Dolores74
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Dolores12
Zip codes with a Dolores address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dolores — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.