Sumpter, Oregon.
Typical home $261,232 (+3.3% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$749 (+120%) since Feb 2021.
- 1 year
- Up $8,363 +3%
- $252,868$261,232 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $43,389 +20%
- $217,843$261,232 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.
- Sumpter$1,371
- Oregon$2,586
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 19 years.
Typical home values in Sumpter, OR rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Sumpter, Baker County, Oregon
Sumpter is a city of 204 people in Baker County. 96% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 4% are rented. Unemployment in Baker County was 5.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Baker 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Sumpter is a very small city in Baker County, in the mountains of eastern Oregon. It is home to far more older residents than most places, and nearly everyone owns the home they live in, which points to a settled, quiet community where neighbors tend to stay put. Winters are cold, with December the coldest month and highs staying close to freezing, while summers are pleasantly warm, and the year brings a moderate amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents most often work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing and in government. Across Baker County, some of the largest workplaces are Baker SD 5J, Marvin Wood Products in Baker City and Saint Alphonsus Medical Center Baker. Jobs across the county have edged up slightly over the past year, and unemployment there is a little lower than it was a year ago.
Things to do. The Sumpter Valley Railway, a museum, and Twin Lakes are both a short drive away. For a longer outing, Anthony Lakes is a ski area in the mountains, and Whitman National Forest offers a large stretch of protected woodland to explore. Both are a longer drive away.
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What people in Baker County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Baker County had 5,635 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 34° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 43°. About 21 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Austin South weather station, 19 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Baker County
- Baker SD 5JSchool district470FTE
- Marvin Wood Products - Baker CityCut stock, resawing lumber, and planing174
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores155
- Forest ServiceFederal government · Department of Agriculture118
- Saint Alphonsus Medical Center BakerCritical access hospital112FTE
- Behlen Mfg. CoTractors and attachments, lawn and garden-type, manufacturing81
- Natural StructuresFabricated plate work manufacturing58
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores56
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 11 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 888 people in all across the county; Sumpter has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- WildfireVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- AvalanchesRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Sumpter’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 Baker County.
Sumpter home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sumpter$261,232
- Oregon$492,753
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Sumpter11
Zip codes with a Sumpter address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sumpter — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.