Plains, Texas.
Typical home $178,765 (+1.2% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$262 (+39%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,053 +1%
- $176,712$178,765 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $41,234 -19%
- $219,999$178,765 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.
- Plains$938
- Texas$1,556
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Plains, TX rose 1.2% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Living in Plains, Yoakum County, Texas
Plains is a town of 1,355 people in Yoakum County. Half its households earn more than $76,985 a year and half less, against $84,925 across Yoakum County. Unemployment in Yoakum County was 4.0% in August 2026, and the county had 5.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Yoakum County work in farming, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Plains is a small town in Yoakum County, on the flat, open South Plains of West Texas. Incomes in town run below the county's as a whole, and home values are modest. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and hardly anyone works from home, so the working day is mostly spent out in the community or in the fields.
Work. Farming, forestry and mining employ more residents than any other line of work, followed by schools, hospitals and social care, then shops and the building trades. Across Yoakum County, the largest workplaces include Denver City ISD, Yoakum County Hospital and Plains ISD. Unemployment across the county is lower than it was a year ago, though the county had fewer jobs last year than the year before.
Things to do. The weather shapes the year here. Winters are cool and mostly dry, with only a little snow, and summers are hot. Rain and melted snow add up to a fairly small amount across the year, in keeping with the dry plains.
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- 11%of adults have a degree
- 0%work from home
What people in Yoakum County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Yoakum County had 3,194 jobs in 2025, 5.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 54° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 65°. About 3 inches of snow and 16 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Plains weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Yoakum County
- Denver City ISDSchool district256FTE
- Yoakum County HospitalCritical access hospital177FTE
- Plains ISDSchool district98FTE
- Cook MFSIndustrial equipment and machinery repair and maintenance services52
- Golden Spread Electric CooperativeElectric power generation, fossil fuel35
- ChampionX22
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 109 people in all across the county; Plains has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- DroughtVery high
- HailVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- Strong windVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Plains’ 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 Yoakum County.
Plains home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Plains$178,765
- Texas$296,424
- 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.
- Plains6
Zip codes with a Plains address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Plains — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.