Forrest City, Arkansas.
Typical home $69,779 (-4.2% in a year). Forrest City, AR metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$102 (+38%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,052 -4%
- $72,831$69,779 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $3,547 -5%
- $73,326$69,779 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.
- Forrest City$366
- Arkansas$1,177
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Forrest City, AR fell 4.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Forrest City, St. Francis County, Arkansas
Forrest City is a city of 13,015 people in St. Francis County. Half its households earn more than $35,689 a year and half less, against $42,574 across St. Francis County; 38% of its people live below the poverty line. 39% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 61% are rented. Unemployment in St. Francis County was 5.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Forrest City is a small city in St. Francis County, Arkansas, and the people who live there are younger on average than in many American towns. Incomes run below the county's, poverty is common, and far more households rent than own their homes. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and homes here cost less than in much of the country.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing, or for government. Among the largest workplaces in Forrest City are the Forrest City School District, the Bureau of Prisons federal prison, and Forrest City Medical Center. Commutes are short, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Beaty Lake is a short drive away and offers a place to be out on the water. A longer drive brings you to Village Creek State Park, a protected area, and to Parkin Archeological State Park, an archaeological site. Winters are cool with very little snow, summers are hot, and the year is fairly wet.
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- 3,831households
- 14%of adults have a degree
- 38%below the poverty line
- 16 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. St. Francis County had 6,705 jobs in 2025, 0.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 49° and lows near 32°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 73°. About 2 inches of snow and 51 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wynne weather station, 17 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Forrest City
- Boar's Head CoCollagen sausage casings made from purchased hides604
- Forrest City School DistrictSchool district322FTE
- Bureau of Prisons/federal Prison SystemFederal government · Department of Justice270
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters246
- Core-Mark Forrest City202
- Forrest City Medical CenterGeneral hospital137FTE
- Perimeter Behavioral of Forrest CityMental health facilities, residential104
- UPSCouriers and express delivery services51
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,255 people in all. 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windVery high
- Ice stormsVery high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Forrest City’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 St. Francis County and the Forrest City, AR metro.
Forrest City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Forrest City$69,779
- Arkansas$224,158
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Forrest City listings — the market is cooling.
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.
- Forrest City22.43%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Forrest City42
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Forrest City5
Zip codes with a Forrest City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Forrest City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.