Selah, Washington.
Typical home $434,959 (+0.2% in a year), asking rent $1,652 (+5.8%). Yakima, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,194 (+110%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $685 +0%
- $434,274$434,959 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $52,926 +14%
- $382,033$434,959 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.
- Selah$2,283
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 27 years.
Typical home values in Selah, WA rose 0.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Selah, WA rose 5.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Selah runs $1,385/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,537 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,037 a month against $1,652 rent: a $2,283 mortgage payment, plus $288 property tax and $466 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Selah
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$3,037
- Renting$1,652
- Mortgage only$2,283
Property tax · $288/mo 0.79% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Yakima County, WA
Insurance & upkeep · $466/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 Selah, Yakima County, Washington
Selah is a city of 8,153 people in Yakima County. Half its households earn more than $74,783 a year and half less, against $70,656 across Yakima County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 59% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 41% are rented. Unemployment in Yakima County was 5.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then transport and warehouses.
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. Selah is a small city in Yakima County, with a younger population than many places where homeowners look to settle. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though a good number of households rent. Incomes run a little above the county's, and winters are cold while summers turn hot and dry, with very little rain or melted snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with transport, warehouses and utilities, shops and manufacturing also employing a good share. The biggest workplaces in Selah include the Selah School District, the City of Selah and Graham Packaging Company. The trip to work is short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away, the Yakima Valley Museum and the Yakima Electric Railway Museum offer local history, and the Capitol Theatre is the place for a night out. For time outdoors, the Yakima Area Arboretum is a botanical garden close by, while the Tieton River is a longer drive away.
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- 3,264households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Yakima County had 115,435 jobs in 2025, 1.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 36° and lows near 21°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 54°. About 8 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Selah Northeast weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Selah
- Selah School DistrictSchool district430FTE
- Dshs274
- City of SelahCity and town managers' offices83
- Graham Packaging CompanyBottles, plastics, manufacturing50
- SelahMail and parcel delivery23
- Bill Harris Used CarsUsed car dealers21
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 451 people in all. 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
- AvalanchesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Selah’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 Yakima County and the Yakima, WA metro.
Selah home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Selah$434,959
- Washington$587,533
- 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 Selah listings — 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.
- Selah37.91%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Selah80
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Selah22
Zip codes with a Selah address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Selah — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.