Flat Top, West Virginia.
Typical home $216,791 (+0.2% in a year). Bluefield, WV-VA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$690 (+154%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $488 +0%
- $216,302$216,791 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $56,418 +35%
- $160,372$216,791 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.
- Flat Top$1,138
- West Virginia$927
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Flat Top, WV rose 0.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Flat Top, Mercer County, West Virginia
The Census does not count Flat Top on its own, so the figures here are Mercer County's. Half the county's households earn more than $53,210 a year and half less; 16% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 73% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Mercer County was 4.3% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Mercer County work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Flat Top is a town in Mercer County, in the southern part of West Virginia, a mountain region with a long history of coal mining and farming. Winters are the coldest part of the year and summers are the warmest, and across Mercer County most homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes across the county are lower than in much of the country, and typical home values are more modest than in many parts of the United States.
Work. Unemployment across Mercer County has eased recently, and the number of jobs has grown a little. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, or in manufacturing. Fewer adults hold a degree than across the country as a whole, and relatively few people work from home.
Things to do. Bluestone National Scenic River, a protected area a short drive away, offers a quiet place to spend time outdoors. Winterplace Ski Resort is in or beside town, which makes it an easy choice for cold-weather days. New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, a protected area a longer drive away, is one of the best known natural places in the region.
Report a mistake
- 24,224households
- 43.5median age
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What people in Mercer County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Mercer County had 19,507 jobs in 2025, 1.0% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 43° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 60°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Athens weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mercer County
- Mercer County SchoolsSchool district1,255FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters365
- Southern HighlandsOutpatient mental health centers and clinics333
- Concord UniversityUniversity or college309
- Con-Weld IndustriesHammer mill machinery, stationary, manufacturing279
- King's Tire ServiceAutomotive tire dealers248
- Bluefield State UniversityUniversity or college229
- CMSFabricated structural metal manufacturing162
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 47 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,243 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Mercer County, 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 Mercer County and the Bluefield, WV-VA metro.
Flat Top home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Flat Top$216,791
- West Virginia$176,576
- United States$366,157
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.
Zip codes with a Flat Top address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Flat Top — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.