Painter, Virginia.
Typical home $197,166 (+4.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$546 (+112%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,658 +5%
- $188,508$197,166 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $26,879 +16%
- $170,288$197,166 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.
- Painter$1,035
- Virginia$2,164
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 24 years.
Typical home values in Painter, VA rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Painter, Accomack County, Virginia
Painter is a town of 272 people in Accomack County. Unemployment in Accomack County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Accomack County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Painter is a very small town on Virginia's Eastern Shore, home to relatively few people, so most days are quiet and neighbors tend to know one another. Homes here are priced modestly, and the town's poverty rate is low for a rural area. A four-year degree is held by fewer adults than across the country as a whole. Winters are cold but short, with only a light dusting of snow in a typical year, while summers turn hot, and the year brings plenty of rain.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and farming and forestry also employing many. Across Accomack County, the largest workplaces include Perdue Foods, Tyson Farms and Accomack County Public Schools. Most people have a short commute, and few work from home. Unemployment across the county is about where it was a year ago, and the county has lost a few jobs over the past year.
Things to do. The Machipongo River runs in or beside town, and Pungoteague Creek and Parramore Island Natural Area Preserve are a short drive away. Parramore Island is a protected area of the barrier islands that line the Atlantic side of the shore. For a longer outing, the Eastern Shore Railway Museum is a drive away, as is Hog Island, a beach on the coast.
Report a mistake
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 16 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What people in Accomack County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Accomack County had 12,942 jobs in 2025, 1.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 48° and lows near 30°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 69°. About 7 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Painter West weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Accomack County
- Perdue FoodsPoultry processing1,810
- Tyson FarmsPoultry processing1,231
- Accomack County Public SchoolsSchool district897FTE
- Shore Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital300FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters245
- Fortrex - 1140 Perdue Farms Inc - AccomacJanitorial services230
- Goddard Space Flight CenterFederal government · National Aeronautics and Space Administration170
- Shore Health & RehabConvalescent homes or convalescent hospitals136
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 20 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,663 people in all across the county; Painter has none of its own. 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
- HurricanesVery high
- Coastal floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively 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 Painter’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 Accomack County.
Painter home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Painter$197,166
- Virginia$412,252
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Painter13
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Painter address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Painter — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.