Morgantown, West Virginia.
Typical home $281,832 (+3.3% in a year), asking rent $1,413 (+3.9%). Morgantown, WV metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$679 (+85%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,908 +3%
- $272,924$281,832 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $38,185 +16%
- $243,646$281,832 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.
- Morgantown$1,479
- West Virginia$927
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 24 years.
Typical home values in Morgantown, WV rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Morgantown, WV rose 3.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Morgantown runs $477/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $554 in Oct 2023.
That is $1,890 a month against $1,413 rent: a $1,479 mortgage payment, plus $109 property tax and $302 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Morgantown
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$1,890
- Renting$1,413
- Mortgage only$1,479
Property tax · $109/mo 0.47% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Monongalia County, WV
Insurance & upkeep · $302/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 Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia
Morgantown is a city of 30,347 people in Monongalia County. Half its households earn more than $44,727 a year and half less, against $65,346 across Monongalia County; 30% of its people live below the poverty line. 44% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 56% are rented. Unemployment in Morgantown was 3.5% in August 2026, and Monongalia County had 0.6% 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. Morgantown is a university city, and it feels like one: residents are far younger than in most American towns, and most adults hold a four-year degree. Fewer people own their homes than across Monongalia County, and household incomes in the city run well below the county's, with a large share of residents living below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, summers are pleasantly warm, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops, and professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Morgantown are Monongalia County Schools, Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital and the Department of Energy. Unemployment is lower than it was a year ago, and the county has added a few more jobs over the past year. Commutes are short, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. In or beside town, Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium is the best known place to see a game, and the Metropolitan Theatre is a theatre for live shows. A short drive away, Cheat Lake is a reservoir for time on the water, and Mont Chateau State Park is a protected area for walks and open space.
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- 11,946households
- 58%of adults have a degree
- 30%below the poverty line
- 16 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Monongalia County had 59,770 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 64°. About 43 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Morgantown Hart Field weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Morgantown
- Monongalia County SchoolsSchool district1,683FTE
- Encompass Health Rehabilitation HospRehabilitation hospital248FTE
- Greer IndustriesRadio broadcasting stations241
- Department of EnergyFederal government214
- Centers for Disease Control and PreventionFederal government · Department of Health and Human Services178
- West Virginia Junior College-MorgantownUniversity or college129
- Kroger Mid-Atlantic KMASupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores106
- West Virginia University HospitalsInstitutional pharmacies, off-site, mail-order105
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 21 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 11,551 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) 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
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of MorgantownRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Morgantown’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 Monongalia County and the Morgantown, WV metro.
Morgantown home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Morgantown$281,832
- West Virginia$176,576
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Morgantown listings, and the typical home goes pending in 13 days — 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.
- Morgantown26.76%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Morgantown13
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Morgantown255
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Morgantown77
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Morgantown$294,968
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Morgantown98.10%
Zip codes with a Morgantown address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Morgantown — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Morgantown
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26508 | Morgantown | 40,231 | $3,571 | $329,295 |
| 26505 | Morgantown | 37,492 | $1,315 | $256,662 |
| 26501 | Morgantown | 19,529 | $1,364 | $220,034 |