Princeton, Kansas.
Typical home $347,467 (+7.0% in a year). Ottawa, KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,115 (+157%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $22,795 +7%
- $324,672$347,467 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $104,670 +43%
- $242,797$347,467 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.
- Princeton$1,824
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Princeton, KS rose 7.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Princeton, Franklin County, Kansas
Princeton is a city of 248 people in Franklin County. Unemployment in Franklin County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Franklin County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Princeton is a very small Kansas city, home to far fewer people than most towns on a map, and everyone is likely to know a good share of their neighbors. Typical homes here are worth more than many people expect for a place this size, and relatively few residents live below the poverty line. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and winters run cold, with a little snow, while summers turn hot and the year brings a fair amount of rain.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in transport, warehouses and utilities, and in manufacturing. Few work from home. Across Franklin County, some of the biggest workplaces are Walmart, Ottawa Schools and Ottawa University-Ottawa, and the county has seen slightly fewer jobs than the year before. Unemployment across the county is a little higher than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. A short drive away, Prairie Spirit Trail State Park is a protected area for walking and being outdoors, and the Old Depot Museum is a local museum. AdventHealth Field, a stadium, is also a short drive away. Those who like the water can head a longer drive to Clinton Lake, a reservoir.
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- 17%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 7%work from home
What people in Franklin County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Franklin County had 10,062 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 68°. About 9 inches of snow and 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ottawa weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Franklin County
- WalmartGeneral warehousing and storage833
- American Eagle Outfitters Retail Distribution WestGeneral warehousing and storage546
- WalmartGeneral freight trucking, long-distance, truckload404
- Ottawa SchoolsSchool district356FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters323
- Ottawa University-OttawaUniversity or college244
- Kalmar SolutionsIndustrial trucks and tractors manufacturing237
- Adventhealth OttawaGeneral hospital221FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 24 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,600 people in all across the county; Princeton has none of its own. 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
- Strong windVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- LightningVery high
- Ice stormsVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- HailVery high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Princeton’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 Franklin County and the Ottawa, KS metro.
Princeton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Princeton$347,467
- Kansas$246,055
- 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 Princeton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Princeton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.