Shepherd, Montana.
Typical home $474,215 (+2.9% in a year). Billings, MT metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,395 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,533 +3%
- $460,682$474,215 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $103,380 +28%
- $370,835$474,215 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.
- Shepherd$2,489
- Montana$2,453
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Shepherd, MT rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Shepherd, Yellowstone County, Montana
Shepherd, in Yellowstone County, had 507 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Yellowstone County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Yellowstone County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Shepherd is a very small community in Yellowstone County, Montana, where neighbors are likely to know one another. Typical home values here run high, and fewer residents live below the poverty line than you might expect. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and plenty of snow, while summers are warm in July and the year stays fairly dry overall.
Work. Across Yellowstone County, household incomes are comfortable and unemployment is low, close to where it stood a year ago. Job numbers across the county have barely changed from the year before. Residents of Shepherd work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in professional and business services. Among the county's largest workplaces are Billings Clinic, St Vincent Healthcare and Billings Elem Schools.
Things to do. Lake Elmo State Park is a protected area only a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to ZooMontana, a zoo, and to the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, a protected area that follows the route of the famous expedition. Pompeys Pillar National Monument, also a protected area, is another longer drive, and the Yellowstone Art Museum offers a museum visit in the same direction.
Report a mistake
- 5%below the poverty line
What people in Yellowstone County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Yellowstone County had 87,416 jobs in 2025, 0.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 55°. About 34 inches of snow and 14 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Huntley Experiment Station weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Yellowstone County
- Billings ClinicGeneral hospital3,738FTE
- Billings Clinic Downtown CampusMds' offices1,342
- Billings Elem SchoolsSchool district1,274FTE
- St Vincent HealthcareGeneral hospital1,234FTE
- Billings H S SchoolsSchool district568FTE
- St Johns Lutheran MinistriesNursing homes534
- Montana State University BillingsUniversity or college507
- CHSPetroleum refineries462
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 178 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 21,378 people in all across the county; Shepherd has two 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- HailRelatively 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 Shepherd’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Yellowstone County and the Billings, MT metro.
Shepherd home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Shepherd$474,215
- Montana$467,275
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Shepherd 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.
- Shepherd28.83%
- United States25.56%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Shepherd17
Zip codes with a Shepherd address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Shepherd — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.