Salem, Oregon.
Typical home $432,418 (+0.3% in a year), asking rent $1,611 (-0.0%). Salem, OR metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,141 (+101%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,268 +0%
- $431,150$432,418 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $42,373 +11%
- $390,045$432,418 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$2,270
- Oregon$2,586
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 34 years.
Typical home values in Salem, OR rose 0.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Salem, OR fell 0.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Salem runs $1,423/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,517 in May 2024.
That is $3,035 a month against $1,611 rent: a $2,270 mortgage payment, plus $302 property tax and $463 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Salem
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$3,035
- Renting$1,611
- Mortgage only$2,270
Property tax · $302/mo 0.84% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Marion County, OR
Insurance & upkeep · $463/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Salem, Marion County, Oregon
Salem is a city of 175,535 people in Marion County. Half its households earn more than $75,487 a year and half less, against $77,351 across Marion County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 56% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 44% are rented. Unemployment in Salem was 5.2% in August 2026, and Marion County had 2.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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. Salem is a city in Marion County and the capital of Oregon. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and more homes are lived in by their owners than rented, though renting is common too. Winters are cool and damp, with December the coldest month, and summers are warm but not extreme, with August the warmest.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, and in government, which fits a city that is home to the state's capital. Among the largest workplaces are the Oregon Department of Human Services, Salem-Keizer SD 24J and Salem Hospital. The typical commute is fairly short, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. Bush's Pasture Park, a botanical garden in or beside town, is a green place to walk, and the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, also in or beside town, is one of the better known museums here. The Willamette Heritage Center is another museum in or beside town, covering the area's history. For a longer outing, the Santiam River is a longer drive away.
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- 67,629households
- 32%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 16%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Marion County had 175,778 jobs in 2025, 2.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 47° and lows near 35°; warmest in August, with highs near 84° and lows near 55°. About 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Salem Mcnary Field weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Salem
- Oregon Department of Human ServicesExecutive offices, federal, state, and local11,196
- Salem-Keizer SD 24JSchool district5,131FTE
- Salem HospitalGeneral hospital4,683FTE
- Oregon Health AuthorityExecutive offices, federal, state, and local3,072
- Oregon State HospitalPsychiatric hospital2,413FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage1,021
- Willamette UniversityUniversity or college754
- Oregon Department of TransportationHighway construction638
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 196 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 39,587 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Heat wavesrelatively high in parts of SalemRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
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 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 Marion County and the Salem, OR 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$432,418
- Oregon$492,753
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Salem listings, and the typical home goes pending in 35 days — the market is cooling.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Salem35.36%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Salem35
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Salem904
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Salem219
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Salem$433,273
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Salem99.34%
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.
Zip codes in Salem
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 97301 | Salem | 57,574 | $1,496 | $367,798 |
| 97305 | Salem | 45,083 | $1,541 | $418,280 |
| 97302 | Salem | 40,799 | $1,520 | $456,438 |
| 97304 | Salem | 34,879 | $1,884 | $494,378 |
| 97306 | Salem | 34,383 | $1,871 | $489,921 |
| 97317 | Salem | 25,966 | $1,809 | $453,407 |