Elsa, Texas.
Typical home $134,663 (-0.1% in a year). McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$456 (+181%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $112 -0%
- $134,775$134,663 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $44,482 +49%
- $90,182$134,663 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.
- Elsa$707
- Texas$1,556
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Elsa, TX fell 0.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Elsa, Hidalgo County, Texas
Elsa is a city of 5,668 people in Hidalgo County. Unemployment in Hidalgo County was 6.3% in August 2026, and the county had 1.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Hidalgo 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Elsa is a small city in Hidalgo County, in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Homes here are valued well below what is typical across the country, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are mild and brief, with little or no snow, while summers turn very hot, and the rain that falls over a year is modest.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in the building trades, or in professional and business services. Across Hidalgo County, the largest workplaces include Idea Public Schools, Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD and The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. The county has seen job numbers edge up over the past year, though unemployment there is still a little above what many people would hope for. Trips to work are short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away is Robert and Janet Vackar Stadium, a stadium for local games. A longer drive brings you to the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area for walking and watching birds. Also a longer drive away is the Museum of South Texas History, a good stop for anyone curious about the region's past.
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- 1,978households
- 8%of adults have a degree
- 13 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What people in Hidalgo County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hidalgo County had 296,499 jobs in 2025, 1.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 71° and lows near 49°; warmest in August, with highs near 97° and lows near 75°. About 25 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Santa Rosa Wnw weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Hidalgo County
- Idea Public SchoolsSchool district8,946FTE
- Edinburg CisdSchool district4,877FTE
- Pharr-san Juan-alamo ISDSchool district4,635FTE
- The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyUniversity or college4,454
- Doctors Hospital at RenaissanceGeneral hospital4,426FTE
- La Joya ISDSchool district3,870FTE
- Mcallen ISDSchool district3,426FTE
- South Texas Health SystemGeneral hospital2,703FTE
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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Elsa’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Hidalgo County and the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX metro.
Elsa home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Elsa$134,663
- Texas$296,424
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Elsa 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.
- Elsa22.26%
- United States26.36%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Elsa21
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Elsa address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Elsa — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.