Lafayette, Wisconsin.
Typical home $463,588 (+3.8% in a year). Whitewater, WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,264 (+108%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,011 +4%
- $446,576$463,588 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $66,309 +17%
- $397,279$463,588 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$2,433
- Wisconsin$1,770
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 22 years.
Typical home values in Lafayette, WI rose 3.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Lafayette, Walworth County, Wisconsin
Lafayette is a town of 2,039 people in Walworth County. Half its households earn more than $111,500 a year and half less, against $80,520 across Walworth County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 88% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 12% are rented. Unemployment in Walworth County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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 small town in Walworth County where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Households here earn more than the county's typical household, and fewer people live below the poverty line than you might expect. The population is middle-aged on the whole, and winters are cold, with a good deal of snow, while summers turn properly warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, the building trades and professional and business services close behind. Across Walworth County, some of the largest workplaces are the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Marcus, which runs hotels with golf courses and spa facilities, and Conagra Brands, a frozen food manufacturer. A good number of adults hold a four-year degree, and the typical commute is a moderate one.
Things to do. Alpine Valley Music Theatre sits in or beside town, and Alpine Valley Resort, a ski area, is a short drive away. For a day on the water, Geneva Lake is a longer drive away, as is Big Foot Beach State Park, a protected area along its shore.
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- 702households
- 38%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Walworth County had 45,772 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 63°. About 40 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lake Geneva Wwtp weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Walworth County
- University of Wisconsin-WhitewaterUniversity or college1,228
- MarcusHotels with golf courses, tennis courts, and/or other health spa facilities995
- Conagra BrandsFrozen specialty food manufacturing709
- Professional Power ProductsWindmills, electric power, generation-type, manufacturing587
- Elkhorn Area School DistrictSchool district440FTE
- MP SystemsTransmission and distribution line construction418
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters385
- Lake Lawn Resort721110 hotels and motels380
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 124 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 14,028 people in all across the county; Lafayette has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Walworth County, 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 Walworth County and the Whitewater, WI 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$463,588
- Wisconsin$337,196
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lafayette8
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
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.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.