Lima, Montana.
Typical home $274,460 (+3.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$883 (+158%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,004 +3%
- $265,457$274,460 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $76,386 +39%
- $198,074$274,460 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.
- Lima$1,441
- Montana$2,453
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Lima, MT rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Lima, Beaverhead County, Montana
Lima is a town of 212 people in Beaverhead County. Half its households earn more than $53,871 a year and half less, against $61,268 across Beaverhead County. 94% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 6% are rented. Unemployment in Beaverhead County was 2.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Beaverhead County work in schools and health care, then farming.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lima is a very small town, with few residents, and nearly everyone who lives there owns their home. Household incomes are below the county's, while the typical home value sits well above what those incomes might suggest. Winters are long and cold, with a good deal of snow, and summers are warm; the year is quite dry overall.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in farming, forestry and mining, the building trades, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Some people work from home. Across Beaverhead County, the biggest workplaces include The University of Montana-Western, Barrett Hospital and Healthcare, and Dillon Elem Schools, and the county's jobless rate has stayed low and close to where it was a year ago.
Things to do. For time outdoors, the Beaverhead River and the Red Rock River are both rivers a longer drive away from town. They suit anyone who likes to be near water and open country.
Report a mistake
- 9%work from home
What people in Beaverhead County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Beaverhead County had 4,054 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 30° and lows near 11°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 47°. About 53 inches of snow and 10 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lima weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Beaverhead County
- The University of Montana-WesternUniversity or college222
- Barrett Hospital and HealthcareCritical access hospital155FTE
- Dillon Elem SchoolsSchool district100FTE
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores95
- Forest ServiceFederal government · Department of Agriculture61
- Beaverhead County H S SchoolsSchool district48FTE
- Ranch and Home SupplyRetail45
- Bureau of Land ManagementFederal government · Department of the Interior27
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 140 people in all across the county; Lima has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- LandslidesRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lima’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 Beaverhead County.
Lima home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lima$274,460
- Montana$467,275
- 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.
- Lima7
Zip codes with a Lima address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lima — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.