Sumner, Washington.
Typical home $586,494 (+0.5% in a year), asking rent $2,219 (+3.5%). Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,603 (+109%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,902 +0%
- $583,592$586,494 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $65,538 +13%
- $520,956$586,494 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.
- Sumner$3,078
- Washington$3,084
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 29 years.
Typical home values in Sumner, WA rose 0.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Sumner, WA rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Sumner runs $1,930/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,166 in Jan 2025.
That is $4,149 a month against $2,219 rent: a $3,078 mortgage payment, plus $443 property tax and $628 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Sumner
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$4,149
- Renting$2,219
- Mortgage only$3,078
Property tax · $443/mo 0.91% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Pierce County, WA
Insurance & upkeep · $628/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 Sumner, Pierce County, Washington
Sumner is a city of 10,621 people in Pierce County. Half its households earn more than $98,191 a year and half less, against $99,564 across Pierce County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 54% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 46% are rented. Unemployment in Pierce County was 5.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% 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. Sumner is a small city in Pierce County, and its people are somewhat younger than you might expect in a town this settled. Household incomes sit a little below the county's, and fewer than most homes across the county are owned by the people living in them, so renting is common here. Winters are cold and damp, with only a little snow, and summers are mild and warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in the building trades and in manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Sumner are the Sumner-Bonney Lake School District, Costco Wholesale and Bellmont Cabinets. Commutes are fairly long, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. Lake Tapps, a reservoir, lies in or beside town, as does the White River, and both are close at hand for time outdoors. Surprise Lake and the Carbon River are a short drive away. For a bigger outing, Seattle's Space Needle and Lumen Field are a longer drive.
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- 4,586households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Pierce County had 337,071 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 45° and lows near 33°; warmest in August, with highs near 76° and lows near 53°. About 6 inches of snow and 45 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mcmillin Rsvr weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sumner
- Sumner-Bonney Lake School DistrictSchool district1,110FTE
- Costco WholesaleGeneral warehousing & storage588
- InfraSource ServicesOil refinery construction489
- Yusen Logistics (Americas) Inc - SumnerGeneral warehousing and storage449
- Bellmont Cabinets337110 wood kitchen cabinet and countertop manufacturing403
- Keurig Green MountainCoffee manufacture and distribution395
- Recreational EquipmentGeneral warehousing and storage307
- AA AsphaltingAsphalt paving235
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 73 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 8,375 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
- EarthquakesVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- Volcanic activityRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Sumner’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Pierce County and the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro.
Sumner home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sumner$586,494
- Washington$587,533
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Sumner 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.
- Sumner35.23%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Sumner34
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Sumner10
Zip codes with a Sumner address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sumner — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.