Riley, Kansas.
Typical home $223,208 (+4.0% in a year). Manhattan, KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$621 (+113%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,567 +4%
- $214,642$223,208 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $50,546 +29%
- $172,662$223,208 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.
- Riley$1,172
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Riley, KS rose 4.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Riley, Riley County, Kansas
Riley is a city of 938 people in Riley County. 90% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 10% are rented. Unemployment in Riley County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Riley County work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Riley is a very small city, and nearly everyone who lives there owns their home. Fewer residents live below the poverty line than is typical across much of the country, and a four-year degree is held by a fair number of adults. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn hot by July; the year brings a moderate amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, in shops, or in professional and business services. Across Riley County, some of the largest workplaces are Kansas State University, Manhattan-Ogden Schools and Mercy Regional Health Center. Job numbers across the county have edged up slightly, and the commute to work is a fairly typical one, with a small share working from home.
Things to do. Tuttle Creek Lake, a reservoir, is a short drive away and is the nearest water for boating or a day by the shore. Farther afield, Milford Lake is another reservoir and Sunset Zoo is a longer drive. The U.S. Cavalry Museum is also a longer drive away and suits an afternoon of local history.
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- 338households
- 30%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What people in Riley County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Riley County had 30,406 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 39° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 67°. About 34 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tuttle Creek Lake weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Riley County
- Kansas State UniversityUniversity or college4,733
- Manhattan-Ogden SchoolsSchool district1,368FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters461
- Mercy Regional Health CenterGeneral hospital340FTE
- Gibraltar IndustriesPatterns, industrial, manufacturing317
- FITT ScientificEngineering services250
- Dillon StoresSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores240
- Agricultural Research ServiceFederal government · Department of Agriculture225
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 38 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,074 people in all across the county; Riley has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Ice stormsVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- HailRelatively 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 Riley’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 Riley County and the Manhattan, KS metro.
Riley home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Riley$223,208
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Riley7
Zip codes with a Riley address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Riley — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.