Lost City, West Virginia.
Typical home $288,878 (+2.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$926 (+157%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,982 +3%
- $280,896$288,878 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $73,444 +34%
- $215,434$288,878 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.
- Lost City$1,516
- West Virginia$927
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Lost City, WV rose 2.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Lost City, Hardy County, West Virginia
The Census does not count Lost City on its own, so the figures here are Hardy County's. Half the county's households earn more than $49,272 a year and half less; 18% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 77% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in Hardy County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Hardy County work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lost City is a small town in Hardy County, in the mountains of West Virginia. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Across Hardy County, most homes are lived in by their owners, and the population is older than the country as a whole.
Work. Residents work in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in farming, forestry and mining. Unemployment is lower than it was a year earlier, while the number of jobs in the county has held nearly steady, slipping slightly. Fewer adults in the county hold a degree than across the country, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Trout Pond is a lake in or beside town, so it is the easiest outing to reach. Lost River is a river a short drive away, and Luray Caverns, a tourist attraction, is a longer drive away.
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- 5,954households
- 46.7median age
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What people in Hardy County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hardy County had 6,072 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 41° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 58°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lost River weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Hardy County
- PilgrimsProcessed poultry manufacturing1,120
- Pilgrims Moorefield PFPoultry processing660
- Hardy County SchoolsSchool district307FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters191
- Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical CollegeTwo-year college89
- Christopher Peacock HomeKitchen cabinets, stock or custom wood, manufacturing75
- Wvnh EMPNursing care facilities57
- Food LionGrocery stores42
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 11 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,293 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
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Hardy County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Hardy County.
Lost City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lost City$288,878
- West Virginia$176,576
- 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.
- Lost City13
Zip codes with a Lost City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lost City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.