The Plains, Virginia.
Typical home $977,496 (+7.2% in a year). Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,913 (+131%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $65,799 +7%
- $911,697$977,496 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $198,561 +25%
- $778,935$977,496 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 Plains$5,131
- Virginia$2,164
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in The Plains, VA rose 7.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in The Plains, Fauquier County, Virginia
The Plains is a town of 245 people in Fauquier County. Unemployment in Fauquier County was 2.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Fauquier County work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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 Plains is a very small town in Fauquier County, Virginia, and one of the smaller places a reader is likely to look up. Home values here run well above what is typical across the country, and the poverty rate is low. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in government and in the building trades. Across Fauquier County, the largest workplaces include Fauquier County Public Schools, Fauquier Hospital and Fauquier County Government. The county's jobless rate is the same as it was a year earlier, and its job count has edged up.
Things to do. A short drive away are the National Sporting Library, a museum, and the Cold War Museum, and Lake Manassas, a reservoir, is also close by. Farther afield, Sky Meadows State Park is a protected area for walking, and the Shenandoah River is a longer drive for time on the water.
Report a mistake
- 6%below the poverty line
What people in Fauquier County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Fauquier County had 23,920 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 66°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Warrenton Southeast weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Fauquier County
- Fauquier County Public SchoolsSchool district1,826FTE
- Fauquier County GovernmentCounty supervisors' and executives' offices979
- Fauquier HospitalGeneral hospital488FTE
- Federal Aviation AdministrationFederal government · Department of Transportation388
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters312
- Greentree HealthcareSkilled nursing facilities215
- Smith-Midland Corporation (Virginia)Concrete products, precast, manufacturing150
- Federal Aviation AdministrationFederal government · Department of Transportation144
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 43 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,747 people in all across the county; The Plains has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in The Plains’ census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively 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 Fauquier County and the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metro.
The Plains home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- The Plains$977,496
- Virginia$412,252
- 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.
- The Plains10
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a The Plains address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls The Plains — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.