Olympia, Washington.
Typical home $526,205 (-0.3% in a year), asking rent $1,969 (+2.8%). Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,444 (+110%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,710 -0%
- $527,915$526,205 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $53,100 +11%
- $473,105$526,205 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.
- Olympia$2,762
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 33 years.
Typical home values in Olympia, WA fell 0.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Olympia, WA rose 2.8% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Olympia runs $1,741/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,952 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,710 a month against $1,969 rent: a $2,762 mortgage payment, plus $384 property tax and $563 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Olympia
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$3,710
- Renting$1,969
- Mortgage only$2,762
Property tax · $384/mo 0.88% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Thurston County, WA
Insurance & upkeep · $563/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 Olympia, Thurston County, Washington
Olympia is a city of 55,605 people in Thurston County. Half its households earn more than $81,302 a year and half less, against $96,563 across Thurston County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 50% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 50% are rented. Unemployment in Olympia was 4.3% in August 2026, and Thurston County had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then government.
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. Olympia is a city of the kind where many people hold a four-year degree, and the population skews a little older than the country as a whole. Incomes run below the county's, and renting is about as common as owning a home. Winters are cold and wet rather than snowy, with a dusting of snow some years, and summers are mild and warm. Rain falls throughout much of the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in government, with shops and professional and business services also employing a good share. Among the largest workplaces in Olympia are Providence St. Peter Hospital, WSDOT headquarters and the Olympia School District. The commute is fairly short, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. In or beside town, Sylvester Park is a park, Tumwater Falls is a waterfall, and the Yashiro Japanese Garden is a garden. A short drive away, the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area for walking and watching wildlife. The Olympic Flight Museum is also a short drive away.
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- 25,451households
- 52%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 26%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Thurston County had 129,835 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 45° and lows near 33°; warmest in August, with highs near 78° and lows near 50°. About 4 inches of snow and 51 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Olympia Airport weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Olympia
- Providence St. Peter HospitalGeneral hospital2,112FTE
- Headquarters WSDOTTransportation1,857
- Olympia School DistrictSchool district1,081FTE
- Department of Children Youth and Families1,006
- Washington State Dept of Natural Resources - DivisionLand management program administration915
- South Puget Sound Community CollegeTwo-year college597
- Intercity TransitBus line, local574
- Capital Medical CenterGeneral hospital470FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 52 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 13,506 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- EarthquakesVery high
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Olympia’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Thurston County and the Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA metro.
Olympia home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Olympia$526,205
- Washington$587,533
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Olympia listings, and the typical home goes pending in 31 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Olympia34.58%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Olympia31
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Olympia407
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Olympia115
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Olympia$533,325
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Olympia99.80%
Zip codes with a Olympia address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Olympia — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Olympia
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 98501 | Olympia | 48,067 | $1,900 | $542,345 |
| 98513 | Olympia | 38,017 | $2,329 | $500,305 |
| 98502 | Olympia | 35,398 | $1,953 | $567,732 |
| 98512 | Olympia | 31,864 | $1,983 | $546,294 |
| 98506 | Olympia | 18,497 | $2,038 | $537,032 |