Piney River, Virginia.
Typical home $207,110 (-1.5% in a year). Charlottesville, VA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$605 (+126%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,063 -1%
- $210,173$207,110 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $34,545 +20%
- $172,565$207,110 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.
- Piney River$1,087
- Virginia$2,164
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 19 years.
Typical home values in Piney River, VA fell 1.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Piney River, Nelson County, Virginia
The Census does not count Piney River on its own, so the figures here are Nelson County's. Half the county's households earn more than $72,589 a year and half less; 12% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 80% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Nelson County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Nelson County work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Piney River is a small community in Nelson County, Virginia, where the river it takes its name from runs nearby. Across Nelson County, the population is older than the country as a whole, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Many neighbors have lived here for years, and the county's median income is a little more modest than its typical home values might suggest.
Work. Residents of Nelson County most often work in schools, hospitals and social care, professional and business services, restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and retail shops. Unemployment has stayed steady over the past year at a low level, while the number of jobs has edged down slightly. A sizable share of workers do their jobs from home.
Things to do. The Priest Wilderness and Lesesne State Forest are both a short drive away, and they offer quiet, wooded land for walking. Piney River and Little Piney River are close by as well, for an easy outing by the water. Crabtree Falls, a waterfall, is a longer drive away but is well worth the trip.
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- 6,364households
- 51.3median age
- 36%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 19%work from home
What people in Nelson County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Nelson County had 3,980 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 48° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 66°. About 46 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tye River Southeast weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Nelson County
- Wintergreen ResortSki lodges and resorts with accommodations644
- Nelson County Public SchoolsSchool district301FTE
- Food LionGrocery stores67
- Three Notch'd 151 - Beer, Bourbon and FoodFull service restaurants59
- Silver Creek OrchardsApple orchards31
- Bold Rock - NellysfordCider, alcoholic, manufacturing23
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 824 people in all. 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
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Nelson County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Nelson County and the Charlottesville, VA metro.
Piney River home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Piney River$207,110
- 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.
Zip codes with a Piney River address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Piney River — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.