Poteau, Oklahoma.
Typical home $186,608 (+3.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$552 (+129%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,215 +3%
- $180,393$186,608 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $43,503 +30%
- $143,105$186,608 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.
- Poteau$979
- Oklahoma$1,159
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Poteau, OK rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Poteau, Le Flore County, Oklahoma
Poteau is a city of 8,807 people in Le Flore County. Half its households earn more than $50,511 a year and half less, against $51,565 across Le Flore County; 20% of its people live below the poverty line. 62% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 38% are rented. Unemployment in Le Flore County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 2.6% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Poteau is a small city and the seat of Le Flore County, in the hills of eastern Oklahoma. Its residents are somewhat younger than in many towns its size, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line. Relatively few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cool and summers are hot.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, manufacturing and the building trades also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Poteau are Walmart, Poteau Schools and Carl Albert State College. Most people get to work in a fairly short drive, and very few work from home. The county has added jobs over the past year, and unemployment there is about where it was a year earlier.
Things to do. Twyman Park is a park in or beside town, and James Fork, a river, is a short drive away. For a longer outing, Lake Wister is a reservoir, and Spiro Mounds is an archaeological site, both a longer drive away. Ozark–St. Francis National Forest is a protected area that also takes a longer drive to reach.
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- 3,286households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Le Flore County had 11,998 jobs in 2025, 2.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 50° and lows near 27°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 70°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wister 3S weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Poteau
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters317
- Poteau SchoolsSchool district263FTE
- Carl Albert State CollegeTwo-year college231
- Eastern Oklahoma Medical CenterCritical access hospital128FTE
- Harps Food StoreRetail grocery114
- Oldcastle InfrastructureAll other plastics product manufacturing78
- Ron's Portable BuildingsPrefabricated building dealers60
- Atwoods 12Retail store34
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 644 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (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
- Ice stormsVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Poteau’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 Le Flore County.
Poteau home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Poteau$186,608
- Oklahoma$220,801
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Poteau listings — 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.
- Poteau25.78%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Poteau78
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Poteau16
Zip codes with a Poteau address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Poteau — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.