McRae, Arkansas.
Typical home $185,466 (+5.1% in a year). Searcy, AR metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$553 (+131%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,919 +5%
- $176,548$185,466 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $39,250 +27%
- $146,216$185,466 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.
- McRae$973
- Arkansas$1,177
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in McRae, AR rose 5.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in McRae, White County, Arkansas
McRae is a city of 616 people in White County. Unemployment in White County was 3.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in White County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. McRae is a small city in White County, Arkansas, with a population that stays well below what most people would call a town of any size. Few adults hold a four-year degree compared with most of the country, and a good number of households live below the poverty line. Winters are mild and brief, with little snow, and summers run hot, with a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing and in the building trades. Across White County, some of the largest workplaces are White County Medical Center, Harding University and the Searcy School District. The typical commute is a fairly long one, very few people work from home, and the county's job market has grown slightly over the past year.
Things to do. Beebe Theater is a theatre a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to the Little Red River, a river good for time on the water, and to Woolly Hollow State Park, a protected area with lake and trails. Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge is another protected area a longer drive away, suited to birdwatching and quiet walks.
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- 8%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 1%work from home
What people in White County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. White County had 26,591 jobs in 2025, 1.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 49° and lows near 30°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 73°. About 2 inches of snow and 52 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Searcy weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in White County
- White County Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,192FTE
- WalmartGeneral warehousing and storage1,007
- Harding UniversityUniversity or college960
- Bryce-Searcy LocationPrinting, flexographic640
- Land O'Frost - SearcyMeat processed from carcasses591
- Searcy School DistrictSchool district582FTE
- Beebe School DistrictSchool district515FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters483
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 48 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 7,744 people in all across the county; McRae has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in McRae’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 White County and the Searcy, AR metro.
McRae home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- McRae$185,466
- Arkansas$224,158
- 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.
- McRae6
Zip codes with a McRae address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls McRae — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.