Gorham, Kansas.
Typical home $145,448 (+10.7% in a year). Hays, KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$441 (+137%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $14,096 +11%
- $131,352$145,448 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $39,843 +38%
- $105,605$145,448 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.
- Gorham$763
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Gorham, KS rose 10.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Gorham, Ellis County, Kansas
Gorham is a city of 376 people in Ellis County. Half its households earn more than $68,200 a year and half less, against $63,084 across Ellis County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Ellis County was 3.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.8% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Ellis 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Gorham is a very small Kansas city in Ellis County, home to few people and set among the open plains of the western part of the state. Household incomes here run higher than across the county, and few residents live below the poverty line. Homes are modestly priced, and few adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in professional and business services. The largest workplaces across Ellis County include Fort Hays State University, Hays Medical Center and Hays Schools. Commutes are short, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Big Creek is a river a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to Fort Hays, a historic fort, and to the Sternberg Museum of Natural History. Wilson Lake, a reservoir, is also a longer drive away. Winters are cold and summers hot, with a moderate amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
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- 13%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 15 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What people in Ellis County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ellis County had 15,211 jobs in 2025, 1.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 67°. About 25 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Russell Municipal Airport weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ellis County
- Fort Hays State UniversityUniversity or college1,335
- Hays Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,065FTE
- Hays SchoolsSchool district515FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters358
- EnerSysLead acid storage batteries manufacturing205
- Dillon StoresSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores157
- KVC HospitalsMental health facilities, residential112
- Midwest EnergyDistribution of natural gas95
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 23 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,011 people in all across the county; Gorham has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- Ice stormsVery high
- HailVery high
- Strong windVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Gorham’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 Ellis County and the Hays, KS metro.
Gorham home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gorham$145,448
- Kansas$246,055
- 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 Gorham address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gorham — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.