Polk, Pennsylvania.
Typical home $147,959 (+3.9% in a year). Oil City, PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$435 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,567 +4%
- $142,392$147,959 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $26,501 +22%
- $121,457$147,959 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.
- Polk$777
- Pennsylvania$1,507
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Polk, PA rose 3.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Polk, Venango County, Pennsylvania
Polk is a borough of 634 people in Venango County. 79% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 21% are rented. Unemployment in Venango County was 4.3% in August 2026, and the county had 1.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Venango 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Polk is a small borough in Venango County, home to far fewer people than most towns and with an older population than much of the country. Most homes are lived in by their owners rather than rented, and typical home values sit at a modest level. Winters are cold and snowy, summers are warm, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and professional and business services also employing many. Across Venango County, the largest workplaces include UPMC Northwest Hospital, Walmart and Komatsu Mining. The typical commute is moderate, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Sandy Creek runs in or beside town, and French Creek is a short drive away for time by the water. Fort Machault, a fort site, is also a short drive away, as is State Game Lands Number 39, a protected area. Oil Creek State Park, a protected area, is a longer drive away.
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- 21 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Venango County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Venango County had 15,993 jobs in 2025, 1.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 60°. About 54 inches of snow and 46 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Franklin weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Venango County
- Upmc Northwest HospitalGeneral hospital658FTE
- University of Pittsburgh Medical CenterHome health care services510
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters406
- MatricLoaded computer boards manufacturing315
- Komatsu MiningEngineering research and development laboratories or services301
- Franklin Area SDSchool district232FTE
- Oil City Area SDSchool district231FTE
- Electralloy/G.O. Carlson Inc./Main StreetStainless steel made in iron and steel mills196
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 55 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,476 people in all across the county; Polk has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Polk’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively 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 Venango County and the Oil City, PA metro.
Polk home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Polk$147,959
- Pennsylvania$287,078
- 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 Polk address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Polk — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.