Sweet, Idaho.
Typical home $676,299 (+0.8% in a year). Boise City, ID metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,169 (+157%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,417 +1%
- $670,881$676,299 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $53,589 +9%
- $622,710$676,299 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.
- Sweet$3,550
- Idaho$2,502
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 42 years.
Typical home values in Sweet, ID rose 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Sweet, Gem County, Idaho
The Census does not count Sweet on its own, so the figures here are Gem County's. Half the county's households earn more than $64,605 a year and half less; 12% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 76% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 24% are rented. Unemployment in Gem County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Gem County work in schools and health care, then construction.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Sweet is a small town in Gem County, in western Idaho. Across the county, most homes are lived in by their owners, and residents are older on average than in many parts of the country. Winters are cold and summers are hot, with rain and melted snow arriving over the course of the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, or in the building trades, with shops and manufacturing also providing jobs. Unemployment across the county has eased over the past year, and the number of jobs has edged upward recently. A minority of adults hold a four-year degree, and a fair number of workers do their jobs from home.
Things to do. Chief Eagle Eye Creek, a river a short drive away, is a easy outing for a summer afternoon. Montour Wildlife Management Area, a protected area also a short drive off, offers quiet walks among wildlife. For a longer trip, Bogus Basin, a ski area a longer drive away, is a well-known place to visit in winter.
Report a mistake
- 7,643households
- 44.2median age
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What people in Gem County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Gem County had 4,595 jobs in 2025, 1.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 51°. About 23 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ola weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Gem County
- Emmett Independent DistrictSchool district275FTE
- AlbertsonsSupermarkets and other grocery stores134
- Walter Knox Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital119FTE
- River's EdgeSkilled nursing facilities86
- Woodgrain MillworksBeams, wood, made from logs or bolts78
- Gentry CivilExcavating, earthmoving, or land clearing contractors60
- Emmett of CascadiaHealthcare41
- Gold Star Foods - IdahoLivestock trucking, local39
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 459 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Gem County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very low. 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 Gem County and the Boise City, ID metro.
Sweet home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sweet$676,299
- Idaho$476,754
- 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.
Zip codes with a Sweet address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sweet — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.