The Dalles, Oregon.
Typical home $393,815 (+2.3% in a year), asking rent $1,779 (+1.2%). The Dalles, OR metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,100 (+114%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,839 +2%
- $384,976$393,815 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $48,587 +14%
- $345,228$393,815 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.
- The Dalles$2,067
- Oregon$2,586
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 26 years.
Typical home values in The Dalles, OR rose 2.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in The Dalles, OR rose 1.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in The Dalles runs $962/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $974 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,741 a month against $1,779 rent: a $2,067 mortgage payment, plus $253 property tax and $422 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — The Dalles
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$2,741
- Renting$1,779
- Mortgage only$2,067
Property tax · $253/mo 0.77% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Wasco County, OR
Insurance & upkeep · $422/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 The Dalles, Wasco County, Oregon
The Dalles is a city of 16,010 people in Wasco County. Half its households earn more than $62,614 a year and half less, against $64,175 across Wasco County; 11% of its people live below the poverty line. 63% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 37% are rented. Unemployment in Wasco County was 5.3% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% 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. The Dalles is a small city on the Columbia River, in Wasco County, Oregon. Incomes here run a little below the county's, and a good share of homes are lived in by their owners rather than rented. Winters are cold and summers are hot, with fairly little rain and snow across the year.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in shops, restaurants and hotels, and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in town are Mid-columbia Medical Center, North Wasco County SD 21 and Fred Meyer Stores. Getting to work takes little time, and few people work from home.
Things to do. In or beside town, Old St. Peter's Landmark is a museum, and Sorosis Park is a place to get outdoors. A short drive away, Celilo Falls is a waterfall on the Columbia. For a longer outing, Maryhill Museum of Art is a longer drive away, and so is Hood River.
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- 6,525households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 16 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Wasco County had 11,532 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 41° and lows near 31°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 61°. About 14 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the The Dalles Municipal Airport weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in The Dalles
- Mid-columbia Medical CenterGeneral hospital516FTE
- North Wasco County SD 21School district427FTE
- Fred Meyer StoresWarehouse clubs and supercenters242
- Veterans Care Centers of OregonSkilled nursing facilities192
- Columbia Gorge Community CollegeTwo-year college158
- GXO Logistics WorldwideGeneral warehousing and storage143
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores137
- City of The DallesCity and town managers' offices125
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 20 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,228 people in all. 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in The Dalles’ 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 Wasco County and the The Dalles, OR metro.
The Dalles home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- The Dalles$393,815
- Oregon$492,753
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 The Dalles listings, and the typical home goes pending in 37 days — 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.
- The Dalles21.80%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- The Dalles88
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- The Dalles25
Zip codes with a The Dalles address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls The Dalles — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.