Melba, Idaho.
Typical home $676,791 (+6.8% in a year). Boise City, ID metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,256 (+174%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $42,909 +7%
- $633,882$676,791 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $80,724 +14%
- $596,067$676,791 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.
- Melba$3,552
- Idaho$2,502
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 27 years.
Typical home values in Melba, ID rose 6.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Melba, Owyhee County, Idaho
Melba is a city of 572 people in Owyhee County. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Owyhee County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 3.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Owyhee County work in construction, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Melba is a very small city, and nearly everyone who lives here owns their home. Homes carry a high typical value, and household incomes across Owyhee County sit below the national picture. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold while summers run hot and dry, with very little rain or snow over a whole year.
Work. Residents work mostly in the building trades, in farming, forestry and mining, in shops, and in schools, hospitals and social care. Across Owyhee County, the largest workplaces include JR Simplot Co, a beef cattle ranching and farming operation, and the Homedale Joint District school district. Commutes are long, and a fair number of people work from home. Unemployment across the county has eased slightly over the past year, though the county has fewer jobs than it did a year earlier.
Things to do. A short drive away are Celebration Park, an archaeological site, and the Guffey Butte–Black Butte Archaeological District, with the Map Rock Petroglyphs Historic District close by as well. A longer drive takes you to the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, a protected area. Ann Morrison Park, a garden, is also a longer drive away.
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- 10%of adults have a degree
- 30 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What people in Owyhee County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Owyhee County had 3,425 jobs in 2025, 3.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 65°. About 8 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Swan Falls Ph weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Owyhee County
- Marsing Agricultural Labor Sponsorship CommitteeFarm labor contractors471
- JR Simplot CoBeef cattle ranching & farming, including feedlots350
- Reynolds Creek Calf RanchBeef cattle feedlots160
- Homedale Joint DistrictSchool district134FTE
- Marsing Joint DistrictSchool district107FTE
- Owyhee Health & RehabSkilled nursing facilities100
- AlbertsonsSupermarkets and other grocery stores75
- Boise Cascade CoEngineered wood member except truss manufacturing74
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 12 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,465 people in all across the county; Melba has one of its own. School districts come 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
- WildfireRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Melba’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 Owyhee County and the Boise City, ID metro.
Melba home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Melba$676,791
- Idaho$476,754
- 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.
- Melba7
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Melba address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Melba — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.