Morehead, Kentucky.
Typical home $188,842 (-1.6% in a year), asking rent $952 .
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$539 (+119%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,020 -2%
- $191,862$188,842 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $43,059 +30%
- $145,783$188,842 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.
- Morehead$991
- Kentucky$1,212
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Morehead, KY fell 1.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Morehead, Rowan County, Kentucky
Morehead is a city of 7,151 people in Rowan County. Half its households earn more than $36,741 a year and half less, against $54,321 across Rowan County; 38% of its people live below the poverty line. 33% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 67% are rented. Unemployment in Rowan County was 5.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Morehead is a small city in Rowan County, and it is a young place, with a median age far below what you find in most American towns. Incomes run well below the county's, and a large share of residents live below the poverty line. Most households rent rather than own, a good deal more than across the county. Winters are cold and snowy, summers are warm, and rain falls through much of the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, with shops and professional and business services close behind. Among the largest workplaces in Morehead are St. Claire Medical Center, Rowan County Schools and Morehead State University. Commutes are fairly short, and some people work from home. Across Rowan County, unemployment has eased a little compared with a year earlier, and the number of jobs has edged up.
Things to do. In or beside town are the Kentucky Folk Art Center, a museum, and Phil Simms Stadium. Cave Run Lake, a reservoir, is a short drive away. For a longer outing, Red River Gorge is a protected area of cliffs and trails a longer drive away.
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- 1,854households
- 30%of adults have a degree
- 38%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rowan County had 10,626 jobs in 2025, 1.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 41° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 64°. About 12 inches of snow and 51 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cave Run Lake weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Morehead
- St. Claire Medical CenterGeneral hospital954FTE
- Rowan County SchoolsSchool district483FTE
- AramarkFood service contractors151
- Kroger Louisville KMASupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores144
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter119
- Life Care Center of MoreheadNursing homes113
- Goodwill IndustriesUsed merchandise stores45
- MoreheadMail and parcel delivery35
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 12 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,261 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- LightningVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Morehead’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 Rowan County.
Morehead home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Morehead$188,842
- Kentucky$230,909
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Morehead 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.
- Morehead24.64%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Morehead71
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Morehead15
Zip codes with a Morehead address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Morehead — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.