Lacey, Washington.
Typical home $507,213 (+0.0% in a year), asking rent $2,075 (+2.0%). Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,428 (+116%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $249 +0%
- $506,964$507,213 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $50,809 +11%
- $456,404$507,213 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.
- Lacey$2,662
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 33 years.
Typical home values in Lacey, WA rose 0.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Lacey, WA rose 2.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Lacey runs $1,500/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,728 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,576 a month against $2,075 rent: a $2,662 mortgage payment, plus $370 property tax and $543 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Lacey
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$3,576
- Renting$2,075
- Mortgage only$2,662
Property tax · $370/mo 0.88% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Thurston County, WA
Insurance & upkeep · $543/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 Lacey, Thurston County, Washington
Lacey is a city of 53,526 people in Thurston County. Half its households earn more than $90,625 a year and half less, against $96,563 across Thurston County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 56% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 44% are rented. Unemployment in Lacey was 4.6% in August 2026, and Thurston County had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then government.
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. Lacey is a city in Thurston County, with a population in the middle of the range for cities in the state. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and homes are lived in by their owners somewhat more often than not, with renters making up a fair part of the town. Typical home values and rents are both high, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than not.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in government, in shops, and in professional and business services. North Thurston Public Schools and Amazon's warehousing operation are among the largest workplaces in Lacey, along with Medline Industries. A fair number of people work from home, and the usual commute is moderate in length.
Things to do. Several lakes lie in or beside town, including Hicks Lake and Long Lake, and the Nisqually River is a short drive away. The Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area, is also a short drive away. Winters are cool and wet, with only a little snow, and summers are mild and comfortable.
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- 23,430households
- 34%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 17%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Thurston County had 129,835 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 45° and lows near 33°; warmest in August, with highs near 78° and lows near 50°. About 4 inches of snow and 51 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Olympia Airport weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lacey
- North Thurston Public SchoolsSchool district1,716FTE
- HeadquartersEnvironmental protection program administration1,057
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage816
- Dshs627
- Harbor Wholesale (LDC)General-line groceries merchant wholesalers602
- Medline IndustriesWholesale distribution of medical, dental, and hospital equipment and supplies501
- Saint Martin's UniversityUniversity or college415
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters389
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 69 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,331 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
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lacey’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 Thurston County and the Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA metro.
Lacey home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lacey$507,213
- Washington$587,533
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Lacey listings, and the typical home goes pending in 26 days — 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.
- Lacey36.74%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Lacey26
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lacey344
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lacey99
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Lacey$520,861
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Lacey99.63%
Zip codes with a Lacey address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lacey — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Lacey
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 98503 | Lacey | 41,656 | $2,004 | $479,112 |
| 98516 | Olympia | 29,177 | $2,100 | $572,774 |