Longview, Washington.
Typical home $386,819 (-0.2% in a year), asking rent $1,297 (+2.5%). Longview, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,017 (+100%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $742 -0%
- $387,561$386,819 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $27,977 +8%
- $358,843$386,819 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.
- Longview$2,030
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 46 years.
Typical home values in Longview, WA fell 0.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Longview, WA rose 2.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Longview runs $1,411/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,579 in May 2024.
That is $2,708 a month against $1,297 rent: a $2,030 mortgage payment, plus $263 property tax and $414 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Longview
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$2,708
- Renting$1,297
- Mortgage only$2,030
Property tax · $263/mo 0.82% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Cowlitz County, WA
Insurance & upkeep · $414/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 Longview, Cowlitz County, Washington
Longview is a city of 37,818 people in Cowlitz County. Half its households earn more than $61,747 a year and half less, against $76,531 across Cowlitz County; 16% of its people live below the poverty line. 55% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 45% are rented. Unemployment in Longview was 5.2% in August 2026, and Cowlitz County had 0.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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. Longview is a city where most homes are lived in by their owners, though the town has more renters than many places of its size might expect. Household incomes run below the county's, and a smaller share of adults hold a four-year degree than in many American towns. Winters are cool and wet rather than severe, and summers are warm without being hot, with a good deal of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing, and in professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Longview are JH Kelly, a mechanical contractor, St. John Medical Center, and the Longview School District. Unemployment has eased slightly over the past year, though across Cowlitz County there are slightly fewer jobs than there were a year earlier.
Things to do. Lake Sacajawea sits in or beside town and is the nearest place to walk or sit by the water. A short drive away, the Coweeman River offers another spot along a river. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to the Lewis River and to Silver Lake, a reservoir.
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- 15,810households
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cowlitz County had 41,077 jobs in 2025, 0.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 47° and lows near 35°; warmest in August, with highs near 80° and lows near 53°. About 48 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Longview weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Longview
- JH KellyMechanical contractors1,411
- St. John Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,308FTE
- Longview School DistrictSchool district783FTE
- Lower Columbia CollegeUniversity or college602
- City of LongviewGeneral services departments, government442
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters297
- Fred Meyer StoresWarehouse clubs and supercenters255
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters245
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 46 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 7,091 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts 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
- EarthquakesVery high
- Heat wavesrelatively high in parts of LongviewRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Longview’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Cowlitz County and the Longview, WA metro.
Longview home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Longview$386,819
- 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 Longview listings, and the typical home goes pending in 27 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.
- Longview30.74%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Longview27
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Longview221
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Longview66
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Longview$370,139
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Longview99.56%
Zip codes with a Longview address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Longview — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.