Milton, Washington.
Typical home $562,819 (+0.1% in a year), asking rent $2,152 (-0.6%). Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,533 (+108%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $761 +0%
- $562,059$562,819 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $53,998 +11%
- $508,821$562,819 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.
- Milton$2,954
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 34 years.
Typical home values in Milton, WA rose 0.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Milton, WA fell 0.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Milton runs $1,830/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,915 in May 2025.
That is $3,981 a month against $2,152 rent: a $2,954 mortgage payment, plus $425 property tax and $603 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Milton
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$3,981
- Renting$2,152
- Mortgage only$2,954
Property tax · $425/mo 0.91% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Pierce County, WA
Insurance & upkeep · $603/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 Milton, Pierce County, Washington
Milton is a city of 8,697 people in Pierce County. Half its households earn more than $96,540 a year and half less, against $99,564 across Pierce County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 55% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 45% are rented. Unemployment in Pierce County was 5.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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. Milton is a small city in Pierce County, and its residents are somewhat younger than you might expect of a town this size. Incomes run a little below the county's, and slightly more homes are lived in by their owners than rented. Winters are cold and damp, with highs in the mid-range of what the season brings and lows that stay above hard freezing, while summers are warm rather than hot, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, professional and business services, and shops. Among the largest workplaces in Milton are the Fife School District, Cannon Construction and Safeway. A typical commute is a fairly long one, and only a small group of residents work from home.
Things to do. Surprise Lake and Wild Waves Theme Park, an amusement park, are in or beside town. A short drive away are Lake Tapps, a reservoir, and Cheney Stadium. For a longer outing, the Space Needle and Lake Washington are a longer drive away.
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- 3,278households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Pierce County had 337,071 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 47° and lows near 37°; warmest in August, with highs near 77° and lows near 57°. About 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tacoma #1 weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Milton
- Fife School DistrictSchool district423FTE
- Cannon ConstructionUtility line, construction181
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores176
- Peak LandscapeLandscape care and maintenance services58
- Mill Ridge VillageAssisted-living facilities without on-site nursing care facilities39
- Concrete Construction NorthwestChimney, concrete, construction25
- San Nicolas Family MarketGrocery store20
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 499 people in all. 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
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Volcanic activityRelatively 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 Milton’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 Pierce County and the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
Milton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Milton$562,819
- Washington$587,533
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Milton listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Milton35.61%
- United States26.36%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Milton21
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Milton10
Zip codes with a Milton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Milton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.