Lafayette, Colorado.
Typical home $664,650 (-0.8% in a year), asking rent $2,193 (+1.5%). Boulder, CO metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,606 (+85%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $5,300 -1%
- $669,950$664,650 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $35,825 +6%
- $628,825$664,650 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.
- Lafayette$3,489
- Colorado$2,777
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 63 years.
Typical home values in Lafayette, CO fell 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Lafayette, CO rose 1.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Lafayette runs $2,300/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,831 in Oct 2023.
That is $4,493 a month against $2,193 rent: a $3,489 mortgage payment, plus $293 property tax and $712 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Lafayette
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$4,493
- Renting$2,193
- Mortgage only$3,489
Property tax · $293/mo 0.53% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Boulder County, CO
Insurance & upkeep · $712/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 Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado
Lafayette is a city of 30,411 people in Boulder County. Half its households earn more than $119,040 a year and half less, against $103,994 across Boulder County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 66% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 34% are rented. Unemployment in Lafayette was 4.2% in August 2026, and Boulder County had 1.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Lafayette is a city in Boulder County where household incomes run above the county's, and where a smaller share of people live below the poverty line than many places. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and the typical home is priced high, with rents to match. Winters are cold, with the coldest weather in December and a fair amount of snow, while summers get hot in July. Precipitation is on the dry side overall.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, manufacturing and retail. Among the largest workplaces in Lafayette are Good Samaritan Medical CTR, Blue Canyon Technologies - Crescent and Imagine HQ. A large share of adults hold a four-year degree, and many people work from home, so the commute is moderate for those who travel to a job. Across Boulder County, the number of jobs slipped a little last year.
Things to do. A short drive away, Folsom Field is a stadium, and the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History is a museum. A longer drive brings you to Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a well-known outdoor theatre, and to the Denver Art Museum, one of the larger museums in the region.
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- 12,628households
- 64%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 30%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Boulder County had 191,487 jobs in 2025, 1.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 48° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 59°. About 45 inches of snow and 15 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Northglenn weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lafayette
- Good Samaritan Medical CTRGeneral hospital903FTE
- Blue Canyon Technologies - Crescent447
- Imagine HQIntermediate care facilities, intellectual and developmental disability273
- Alpha Zulu LogisticsDelivery service220
- Young Men's Christian Association of Northern ColoradoPhysical fitness facilities186
- UFP Site BuiltRoof trusses, wood, manufacturing132
- RevvityEnzyme proteins manufacturing115
- Rocky Mountain Instrument CoLenses manufacturing82
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 21 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,258 people in all. Hospitals come 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
- LightningVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lafayette’s census tracts, 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 Boulder County and the Boulder, CO metro.
Lafayette home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lafayette$664,650
- Colorado$529,013
- 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 Lafayette listings, and the typical home goes pending in 22 days — the market is heating up.
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.
- Lafayette32.39%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Lafayette22
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lafayette120
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lafayette36
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Lafayette$683,363
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Lafayette98.71%
Zip codes with a Lafayette address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lafayette — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.