Mountain Home, Idaho.
Typical home $360,315 (+1.8% in a year), asking rent $1,555 (+6.0%). Mountain Home, ID metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,145 (+153%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,270 +2%
- $354,044$360,315 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $42,344 +13%
- $317,971$360,315 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.
- Mountain Home$1,891
- Idaho$2,502
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 28 years.
Typical home values in Mountain Home, ID rose 1.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Mountain Home, ID rose 6.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Mountain Home runs $883/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $980 in May 2025.
That is $2,438 a month against $1,555 rent: a $1,891 mortgage payment, plus $161 property tax and $386 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Mountain Home
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$2,438
- Renting$1,555
- Mortgage only$1,891
Property tax · $161/mo 0.54% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Elmore County, ID
Insurance & upkeep · $386/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 Mountain Home, Elmore County, Idaho
Mountain Home is a city of 15,979 people in Elmore County. Half its households earn more than $63,125 a year and half less, against $65,359 across Elmore County; 11% of its people live below the poverty line. 67% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 33% are rented. Unemployment in Elmore County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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. Mountain Home is a small city in Elmore County, in southwestern Idaho, with a young population compared with most of the country. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and most homes are lived in by their owners, though a fair number of households rent. Winters are cold, with December the coldest month, and summers are hot, with July the warmest.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, manufacturing, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in Mountain Home are Marathon Cheese Corporation, the Mountain Home school district and Walmart. Unemployment in the county has held steady over the past year, and the number of jobs has barely changed.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Bruneau Dunes State Park is a protected area a longer drive away, and the Bruneau River runs through the same stretch of country. C. J. Strike Reservoir, also a longer drive away, is a body of water suited to a day by the shore. For an evening indoors, the Gorby Opera Theater is a theatre, likewise a longer drive from town.
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- 6,349households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Elmore County had 7,522 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 39° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 60°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mountain Home weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mountain Home
- Marathon Cheese Corporation Mt. HomeCheese, natural, manufacturing532
- Mountain Home DistrictSchool district344FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters286
- St. Lukes Elmore Medical CenterCritical access hospital183FTE
- AlbertsonsSupermarkets and other grocery stores94
- Inventive68
- Forest ServiceFederal government · Department of Agriculture63
- Idaho Virtual High SchoolSchool district55FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,363 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- AvalanchesRelatively 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 Mountain Home’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 Elmore County and the Mountain Home, ID metro.
Mountain Home home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mountain Home$360,315
- Idaho$476,754
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Mountain Home listings, and the typical home goes pending in 18 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.
- Mountain Home24.46%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Mountain Home18
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Mountain Home103
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Mountain Home38
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Mountain Home$362,212
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Mountain Home98.30%
Zip codes with a Mountain Home address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mountain Home — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.