Seneca, Missouri.
Typical home $222,299 (+5.1% in a year). Joplin, MO metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$674 (+137%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,718 +5%
- $211,581$222,299 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $62,539 +39%
- $159,761$222,299 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.
- Seneca$1,167
- Missouri$1,393
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Seneca, MO rose 5.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Seneca, Newton County, Missouri
Seneca is a city of 2,230 people in Newton County. Half its households earn more than $46,023 a year and half less, against $66,301 across Newton County. 64% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 36% are rented. Unemployment in Newton County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 8.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Newton 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Seneca is a small city in the southwest corner of Missouri. Incomes here run below the county's, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with a little snow, and summers get hot, with plenty of rain through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and professional and business services also employing many. Across Newton County, some of the largest workplaces are Freeman OAK Hill Health System, La-Z-Boy and Crowder College. The commute is a moderate one, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Spring River and Twin Bridges State Park are both a short drive away, and the river and the park make easy outings close to home. A longer drive leads to Grand Lake o' the Cherokees, a large reservoir, and to George Washington Carver National Monument, a protected area.
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- 645households
- 7%of adults have a degree
- 23 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What people in Newton County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Newton County had 23,014 jobs in 2025, 8.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 46° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 70°. About 8 inches of snow and 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Neosho weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Newton County
- Freeman Oak Hill Health SystemGeneral hospital2,921FTE
- Joplin SchoolsSchool district1,182FTE
- Mercy Hospital JoplinGeneral hospital922FTE
- La-Z-BoyUpholstered furniture, household-type, custom, manufacturing850
- Neosho School DistrictSchool district666FTE
- Crowder CollegeTwo-year college618
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters421
- Heartland Pet Foods JoplinDog and cat food, manufacturing307
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 67 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 12,500 people in all across the county; Seneca has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- Inland floodingVery high
- Ice stormsVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Seneca’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 Newton County and the Joplin, MO metro.
Seneca home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Seneca$222,299
- Missouri$265,387
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Seneca 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.
- Seneca27.08%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Seneca38
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Seneca9
Zip codes with a Seneca address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Seneca — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.