Patterson, Louisiana.
Typical home $156,549 (+5.1% in a year). Morgan City, LA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$380 (+86%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,537 +5%
- $149,012$156,549 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $24,481 +19%
- $132,068$156,549 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.
- Patterson$822
- Louisiana$1,123
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Patterson, LA rose 5.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Patterson, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana
Patterson is a city of 5,931 people in St. Mary Parish. Unemployment in St. Mary Parish was 4.3% in August 2026, and the county had 2.4% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Patterson is a small city in St. Mary Parish, in south Louisiana, and it sits along Bayou Teche. Homes here cost less than in much of the country, and a good share of households live below the poverty line. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and the commute to work tends to be a long one.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants and hotels, and in manufacturing. Across St. Mary Parish, the largest workplaces include St. Mary Parish Schools, Bollinger Amelia Operations, a shipyard, and Ochsner St. Mary, a hospital. Unemployment across the parish is lower than a year ago, though the parish has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Bayou Teche runs in or beside town, and so does the Louisiana State Museum – Patterson. A longer drive away are Bayou Teche National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area, and Lake Verret, one of several lakes in the area. Winters are mild, summers are hot, snow is rare, and the year is a wet one.
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- 2,067households
- 9%of adults have a degree
- 23%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. St. Mary Parish had 19,370 jobs in 2025, 2.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 63° and lows near 45°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 76°. About 59 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Morgan City weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in St. Mary Parish
- St. Mary Parish SchoolsSchool district1,094FTE
- Bollinger Amelia OperationsShipyard643
- Conrad Deepwater South and RepairBarge building454
- Ochsner St. MaryGeneral medical and surgical hospitals330
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters289
- Conrad Morgan CityBarge building277
- SEACOR MarineBoat rental or leasing, commercial223
- OneSubsea BerwickOil and gas field-type drilling machinery and equipment manufacturing198
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 38 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,985 people in all across the county; Patterson has two of its own. School districts come 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
- HurricanesVery high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Heat 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 Patterson’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 St. Mary Parish and the Morgan City, LA metro.
Patterson home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Patterson$156,549
- Louisiana$213,867
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Patterson listings — 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.
- Patterson35.14%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Patterson24
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Patterson5
Zip codes with a Patterson address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Patterson — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.