Helena, Montana.
Typical home $477,974 (+2.9% in a year), asking rent $1,630 (+2.9%). Helena, MT metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,490 (+146%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,359 +3%
- $464,615$477,974 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $103,973 +28%
- $374,002$477,974 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.
- Helena$2,509
- Montana$2,453
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Helena, MT rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Helena, MT rose 2.9% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Helena runs $1,706/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,715 in Oct 2023.
That is $3,336 a month against $1,630 rent: a $2,509 mortgage payment, plus $315 property tax and $512 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Helena
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$3,336
- Renting$1,630
- Mortgage only$2,509
Property tax · $315/mo 0.79% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lewis and Clark County, MT
Insurance & upkeep · $512/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 Helena, Lewis and Clark County, Montana
Helena is a city of 32,091 people in Lewis and Clark County. Half its households earn more than $71,036 a year and half less, against $78,237 across Lewis and Clark County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 53% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 47% are rented. Unemployment in Helena was 2.7% in August 2026, and Lewis and Clark County had 0.8% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then government.
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. Helena is a small city and the state capital, with winters that are cold and snowy and summers that turn warm. Residents are a little older than in many places, and a four-year degree is common among adults here. Incomes run below the county's, and homes here are about evenly split between owners and renters, so there are more renters than across much of the county.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, or in government, with professional services and shops close behind. St. Peter's Hospital, the Montana Department of Justice and the Helena elementary schools are among the largest workplaces in town. Getting to work takes little time, and a fair number of people work from home.
Things to do. In town, Spring Meadow Lake State Park offers open water and green space, and the Grandstreet Theatre puts on stage productions. A short drive away, Helena National Forest is a large stretch of protected woodland for walking and getting outdoors. Farther out, Canyon Ferry Lake is a big reservoir for boating and fishing, and Great Divide Snowsports is a ski area suited to the snowy winters.
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- 15,774households
- 51%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 14 mintypical commute
- 16%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lewis and Clark County had 39,657 jobs in 2025, 0.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 32° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 55°. About 37 inches of snow and 11 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Helena Regional Airport weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Helena
- St. Peters HospitalGeneral hospital1,400FTE
- Montana Department of JusticePublic safety bureaus and statistics centers, government870
- Helena Elem SchoolsSchool district603FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters418
- Montana Legislative BranchLegislative bodies334
- Helena H S SchoolsSchool district263FTE
- West Mont Main OfficeIndividual and family social services, multi-purpose255
- Carroll CollegeUniversity or college244
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 39 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,551 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of HelenaRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Helena’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 Lewis and Clark County and the Helena, MT metro.
Helena home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Helena$477,974
- Montana$467,275
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Helena listings — 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.
- Helena19.31%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Helena314
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Helena75
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Helena$506,665
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Helena address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Helena — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Helena
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 59601 | Helena | 31,728 | $1,573 | $439,897 |
| 59602 | Helena | 30,754 | $1,817 | $530,048 |