Helena, Oklahoma.
Typical home $92,452 (-7.2% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$154 (+47%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $7,225 -7%
- $99,677$92,452 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $13,723 -13%
- $106,175$92,452 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.
- Helena$485
- Oklahoma$1,159
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Helena, OK fell 7.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Helena, Alfalfa County, Oklahoma
Helena is a town of 1,537 people in Alfalfa County. Half its households earn more than $61,500 a year and half less, against $64,615 across Alfalfa County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 85% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 15% are rented. Unemployment in Alfalfa County was 2.7% in August 2026, and the county had 4.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Alfalfa County work in farming, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Helena is a small town in Alfalfa County, Oklahoma, where residents tend to be older than in most places and nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and homes are modestly priced. Winters are cold and summers are hot, with some snow each year and a fair amount of rain.
Work. Many residents work in farming, forestry and mining, and others in schools, hospitals and social care, in transport, warehouses and utilities, or in shops. Across Alfalfa County, the largest workplaces include Timberlake Schools and Alfalfa Electric Cooperative. Very few people work from home, and the county has fewer jobs than it did a year earlier.
Things to do. The best-known place nearby is the Medicine Lodge River, a river a longer drive away. Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area, is also a longer drive away, as is Great Salt Plains Lake, a reservoir. Each suits a day trip rather than a quick outing.
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- 136households
- 4%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 1%work from home
What people in Alfalfa County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Alfalfa County had 1,149 jobs in 2025, 4.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 47° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 70°. About 13 inches of snow and 32 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Helena Sse weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Alfalfa County
- Timberlake SchoolsSchool district65FTE
- Alfalfa Electric CooperativeDistribution of electric power57
- Cherokee SchoolsSchool district55FTE
- Burlington SchoolsSchool district44FTE
- Aline-cleo SchoolsSchool district33FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1 workplace with 20 or more staff, 57 people in all across the county; Helena has none of its own. School districts come 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Helena’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 Alfalfa County.
Helena home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Helena$92,452
- Oklahoma$220,801
- 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 Helena address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Helena — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.