Salem, Kentucky.
Typical home $121,836 (-8.4% in a year). Paducah, KY-IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$276 (+76%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $11,158 -8%
- $132,994$121,836 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $9,811 +9%
- $112,025$121,836 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.
- Salem$639
- Kentucky$1,212
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 41 years.
Typical home values in Salem, KY fell 8.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Salem, Livingston County, Kentucky
Salem is a city of 722 people in Livingston County. 84% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 16% are rented. Unemployment in Livingston County was 4.5% 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 manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Salem is a very small city in Livingston County, Kentucky, where most homes are lived in by their owners and a typical home costs less than in much of the country. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and only a little snow, and summers are hot, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow add up to a good deal over the year, and few adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. People here work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in the building trades and in shops. Across Livingston County, some of the largest workplaces are Livingston County Schools, Livingston Hospital and Jim Smith Contracting Co. Household incomes in the county are modest, the commute to work is on the long side, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. The area is built around water and open country. Kentucky Lake is a large reservoir, and the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River both run nearby, each a longer drive away. Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, also a longer drive away, is a protected area of woods and shoreline for walking and time outdoors.
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- 268households
- 15%of adults have a degree
- 33 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Livingston County had 3,489 jobs in 2025, 2.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 43° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 69°. About 4 inches of snow and 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Smithland L&d weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Livingston County
- Jim Smith Contracting CoOil field road construction200
- Livingston County SchoolsSchool district189FTE
- Livingston HospitalCritical access hospital154FTE
- Atrium CentersHomes for the elderly with nursing care36
- Reliable ElectricElectrical, electrical wiring, and low voltage electrical work28
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 264 people in all across the county; Salem has two of its own. School districts come 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
- Ice stormsVery high
- Strong windVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Salem’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 Livingston County and the Paducah, KY-IL metro.
Salem home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Salem$121,836
- Kentucky$230,909
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
- Salem5
Zip codes with a Salem address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Salem — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.