Ruston, Washington.
Typical home $748,397 (+4.1% in a year). Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,222 (+130%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $29,584 +4%
- $718,813$748,397 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $127,994 +21%
- $620,403$748,397 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.
- Ruston$3,928
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Ruston, WA rose 4.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ruston, Pierce County, Washington
Ruston is a city of 1,055 people in Pierce County. Half its households earn more than $116,331 a year and half less, against $99,564 across Pierce County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Pierce County was 5.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Pierce 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ruston is a very small town on the shore of Commencement Bay, right beside Tacoma. Household incomes run above the county's, and the typical home here is worth a good deal, so it is a comfortable place by most measures, though fewer people live in poverty than you might find elsewhere in the area. A large majority of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cool and wet, coldest in December, and summers stay pleasantly warm without turning hot.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, professional and business services, and the building trades. Across Pierce County, some of the largest workplaces are the City of Tacoma, MultiCare Health System and the Puyallup School District. Unemployment is about where it was a year ago, and the county has added a few more jobs. The typical commute is a long one, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium is in or beside town, which makes it the easiest outing from home. A short drive away you will find the Museum of Glass and Cheney Stadium, a ballpark. For a bigger day out, Seattle's Space Needle, a well-known tourist attraction, and Lake Washington are a longer drive away.
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- 637households
- 62%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 34 mintypical commute
- 22%work from home
What people in Pierce County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Pierce County had 337,071 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 46° and lows near 36°; warmest in August, with highs near 76° and lows near 54°. About 42 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tacoma Narrows Airport weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Pierce County
- City of TacomaGovernment base facilities operation support services3,921
- Tacoma General Allenmore HospitalGeneral hospital2,897FTE
- WSH2,623
- MultiCare Health SystemPhysicians, mental health, offices e.g., centers, clinics2,526
- Puyallup School DistrictSchool district2,443FTE
- MultiCare Health SystemOffices of physicians2,402
- Bethel School DistrictSchool district2,281FTE
- St Joseph Medical CenterGeneral hospital2,232FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 680 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 98,490 people in all across the county; Ruston has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- EarthquakesVery high
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ruston’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 Pierce County and the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
Ruston home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ruston$748,397
- Washington$587,533
- 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.
- Ruston10
Zip codes with a Ruston address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ruston — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.