Falling Waters, West Virginia.
Typical home $320,358 (+3.0% in a year), asking rent $1,887 . Hagerstown-Martinsburg, MD-WV metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$932 (+124%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,313 +3%
- $311,045$320,358 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $64,904 +25%
- $255,454$320,358 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.
- Falling Waters$1,681
- West Virginia$927
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Falling Waters, WV rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Owning the typical home in Falling Waters runs $278/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $2,165 a month against $1,887 rent: a $1,681 mortgage payment, plus $140 property tax and $343 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Falling Waters
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$2,165
- Renting$1,887
- Mortgage only$1,681
Property tax · $140/mo 0.52% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Berkeley County, WV
Insurance & upkeep · $343/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 Falling Waters, Berkeley County, West Virginia
Falling Waters, in Berkeley County, had 1,440 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $88,466 a year and half less, against $80,815 across Berkeley County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Berkeley County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Berkeley County 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. Falling Waters is a small community in Berkeley County, West Virginia, with a younger population than many towns its size and incomes above the county's. Poverty is uncommon here, and homes are priced and rented at levels that reflect the town's place within reach of the wider region. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the hottest; rain and melted snow arrive in moderate amounts across the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in manufacturing, shops and professional and business services. Across Berkeley County, the largest workplaces include Berkeley County Schools, the Veterans Health Administration and Berkeley Medical Center. Unemployment across the county is lower than a year ago, and the number of jobs there has edged up slightly. Commutes are of moderate length, and relatively few people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away, Opequon Creek is a river for time by the water, and Fort Frederick is a historic fort. Also a short drive off, Hagerstown City Park is a garden good for an easy walk. For a longer day out, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park is a protected area a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 20%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What people in Berkeley County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Berkeley County had 38,558 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 64°. About 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Martinsburg weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Berkeley County
- Berkeley County SchoolsSchool district2,876FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs2,019
- Berkeley Medical CenterHealthcare1,723
- Procter and Gamble Tabler StationHair preparations manufacturing1,560
- Macys Logistics and OperationsGeneral warehousing and storage1,251
- City HospitalGeneral hospital1,070FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters449
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters446
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 71 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 12,038 people in all across the county; Falling Waters has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) 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 windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Falling Waters’ 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 Berkeley County and the Hagerstown-Martinsburg, MD-WV metro.
Falling Waters home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Falling Waters$320,358
- West Virginia$176,576
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Falling Waters 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.
- Falling Waters30.12%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Falling Waters47
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Falling Waters19
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Falling Waters$306,129
- United States$371,553
Zip codes with a Falling Waters address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Falling Waters — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.