Preston, Mississippi.
Typical home $139,758 (+7.0% in a year). Meridian, MS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$299 (+69%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,195 +7%
- $130,563$139,758 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $12,100 -8%
- $151,857$139,758 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.
- Preston$734
- Mississippi$1,021
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Preston, MS rose 7.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Preston, Kemper County, Mississippi
The Census does not count Preston on its own, so the figures here are Kemper County's. Half the county's households earn more than $46,431 a year and half less; 25% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 79% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 21% are rented. Unemployment in Kemper County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Kemper County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Preston is a small town in Kemper County, in the east of Mississippi. Across the county, most homes are lived in by their owners, and home values sit well below the national figure. Households have lower incomes than across the country as a whole, and more residents live in poverty than across the country. Many adults have not gone on to a four-year degree, which is less common here than in most of the country. The town has a settled, older feel, with many people who have lived in the area for a long time.
Work. Schools, hospitals and social care, shops, manufacturing, and professional and business services are the main kinds of work residents do. Unemployment across Kemper County has fallen over the past year, though the county had somewhat fewer jobs last year than the year before. Most people drive to work, and very few work from home, so a daily commute is part of most working lives.
Things to do. The Pearl River is a river a short drive away, suited to a quiet afternoon by the water. Nanih Waiya is an archaeological site a short drive away, a place to learn about the earlier peoples of the region. For a longer outing, the Tombigbee National Forest is a protected area a longer drive away, with woods to walk through.
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- 3,223households
- 40.6median age
- 19%of adults have a degree
- 25%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 1%work from home
What people in Kemper County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kemper County had 1,748 jobs in 2025, 1.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 35°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 71°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Philadelphia Wsw weather station, 19 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kemper County
- East Mississippi Community CollegeTwo-year college513
- Kemper CO School DistSchool district232FTE
- Ms Care Center of DekalbNursing homes94
- Prime LineFish manufacturing92
- Ochsner Stennis HospitalOffices of physicians90
- Ochsner Stennis HospitalCritical access hospital58FTE
- Mississippi Power CompanyFossil fuel electric power generation42
- Sodexo at East Mississippi Comm CollegeFood service contractors33
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 375 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts 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
FEMA rates every natural hazard here relatively low or very low.
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Kemper 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 Kemper County and the Meridian, MS metro.
Preston home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Preston$139,758
- Mississippi$194,531
- 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.
- Preston8
Zip codes with a Preston address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Preston — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.