Saltville, Virginia.
Typical home $125,686 (+4.7% in a year). Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$360 (+120%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,587 +5%
- $120,099$125,686 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $25,315 +25%
- $100,371$125,686 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.
- Saltville$660
- Virginia$2,164
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Saltville, VA rose 4.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Saltville, Smyth County, Virginia
Saltville is a town of 1,824 people in Smyth County. Half its households earn more than $48,658 a year and half less, against $49,883 across Smyth County. 63% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 37% are rented. Unemployment in Smyth County was 4.3% in August 2026, and the county had 3.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Smyth County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Saltville is a small town in Smyth County, Virginia, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and typical home values are modest. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and the town has an old sense of being tied to the land and to its industrial past.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels close behind. Across Smyth County, the largest workplaces include Utility Trailer Manufacturing Co, Smyth County Public Schools and the Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute. The typical commute is moderate, and very few people work from home. Jobs across the county fell a little last year, and unemployment is about where it was a year ago.
Things to do. The Saltville Battlefields Historic District, an archaeological site, lies in or beside town. A short drive away are Clinch Mountain Wildlife Management Area and Red Rock Mountain Natural Area Preserve, both protected areas for walking and time outdoors. Winters are cold with some snow, summers are warm, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
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- 863households
- 11%of adults have a degree
- 22 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Smyth County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Smyth County had 11,230 jobs in 2025, 3.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 44° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 10 inches of snow and 48 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Saltville 1N weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Smyth County
- Utility Trailer Manufacturing CoAutomobile transporter trailers, multi-car, manufacturing905
- Smyth County Public SchoolsSchool district713FTE
- Southwestern Virginia Mental Health InstituteHospitals, psychiatric convalescent546
- Smyth County Board of SupervisorsCounty supervisors' and executives' offices406
- Westlake Royal Building Products MarionPolyvinyl chloride resins manufacturing368
- SIG Packaging, LLC- ChilhowieBags, plastics film, single wall or multiwall, manufacturing329
- Sig PackagingFood storage bags, plastics film, single wall or multiwall, manufacturing329
- W-L Construction & PavingPavement, highway, road, street, bridge or airport runway, construction250
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 32 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,408 people in all across the county; Saltville has none of its own. School districts come 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Saltville’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 Smyth County and the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA metro.
Saltville home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Saltville$125,686
- Virginia$412,252
- 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 5 Saltville listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Saltville18.77%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Saltville25
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Saltville6
Zip codes with a Saltville address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Saltville — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.