Port Arthur, Texas.
Typical home $124,744 (+3.1% in a year), asking rent $1,196 (+3.0%). Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$234 (+56%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $3,722 +3%
- $121,022$124,744 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $590 +0%
- $124,154$124,744 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.
- Port Arthur$655
- Texas$1,556
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Port Arthur, TX rose 3.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Port Arthur, TX rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Port Arthur runs $248/mo less than renting one. The gap peaked at $330 in Jun 2026.
That is $948 a month against $1,196 rent: a $655 mortgage payment, plus $159 property tax and $134 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Port Arthur
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$948
- Renting$1,196
- Mortgage only$655
Property tax · $159/mo 1.53% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Jefferson County, TX
Insurance & upkeep · $134/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Port Arthur, Jefferson County, Texas
Port Arthur is a city of 56,039 people in Jefferson County. Half its households earn more than $46,354 a year and half less, against $60,026 across Jefferson County; 29% of its people live below the poverty line. 58% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 42% are rented. Unemployment in Port Arthur was 9.0% in August 2026, and Jefferson County had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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. Port Arthur is a Gulf Coast city in Jefferson County, with a population somewhat younger than much of the country. Incomes here run below the county's, and more residents live below the poverty line than is typical, though most homes are lived in by their owners. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and a typical commute is a short one. Winters are mild, with cool days and lows that rarely feel harsh, while summers are hot, and rain falls heavily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, the building trades, shops and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Port Arthur are the Port Arthur ISD school district, Valero Energy, which refines crude oil, and the Port Arthur Liquefaction Project, an industrial construction site. Unemployment is higher than many residents would want, and the number of jobs across the county has held about steady from the year before.
Things to do. Sabine Lake, a lake a short drive away, is the closest water to the city, and Taylor Bayou, a river also a short drive away, offers another quiet place outdoors. The Museum of the Gulf Coast, a museum a short drive away, covers the history of this stretch of coast. For a longer day out, Sea Rim State Park, a protected area on the coast, is a longer drive away.
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- 21,630households
- 13%of adults have a degree
- 29%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 1%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Jefferson County had 124,810 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 64° and lows near 44°; warmest in August, with highs near 93° and lows near 74°. About 62 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Port Arthur Southeast Tx Airport weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Port Arthur
- Port Arthur Liquefaction ProjectIndustrial building construction5,809
- Port Arthur ISDSchool district1,303FTE
- Echo MaintenancePipeline, gas and oil, construction902
- Valero EnergyCrude oil refining780
- Industrial Specialty CraftsScaffold erecting and dismantling609
- BOB Hope SchoolSchool district299FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters293
- Chevron Phillips Chemical Port ArthurOlefins made from refined petroleum or liquid hydrocarbons270
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 35 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,583 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
- HurricanesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Tornadoesrelatively high in parts of Port ArthurRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of Port ArthurRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Port Arthur’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 Jefferson County and the Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX metro.
Port Arthur home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Port Arthur$124,744
- Texas$296,424
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Port Arthur listings, and the typical home goes pending in 24 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Port Arthur17.09%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Port Arthur119
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Port Arthur24
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Port Arthur$153,311
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Port Arthur address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Port Arthur — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Port Arthur
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 77642 | Port Arthur | 38,358 | $1,151 | $127,318 |
| 77640 | Port Arthur | 17,167 | $1,400 | $124,836 |