Vale, Oregon.
Typical home $333,215 (+3.6% in a year). Ontario, OR-ID metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,061 (+154%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,669 +4%
- $321,546$333,215 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $62,536 +23%
- $270,679$333,215 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.
- Vale$1,749
- Oregon$2,586
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Vale, OR rose 3.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Vale, Malheur County, Oregon
Vale is a city of 1,894 people in Malheur County. Half its households earn more than $50,313 a year and half less, against $54,519 across Malheur County; 16% of its people live below the poverty line. 64% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 36% are rented. Unemployment in Malheur County was 4.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in shops, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Vale is a small city in Malheur County, Oregon, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Incomes run a little below the county's, and a larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is true for the country as a whole. Winters are cold and summers are hot, and the town gets little rain or snow over the course of a year.
Work. Residents work mostly in shops, in schools, hospitals and social care, in government, and in farming, forestry and mining. Among the largest workplaces in Vale are the Vale school district, the Bureau of Land Management and Jamieson Produce, which packs fruits and vegetables. Commutes are short, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. In or beside town, the Vale Hotel and Grand Opera House is a theatre, and the Rinehart Stone House Museum is a local museum. Bully Creek Reservoir is a short drive away, and Lake Owyhee State Park is a longer drive for those who want a day by the water.
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- 844households
- 14%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Malheur County had 13,510 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 21°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 57°. About 10 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Vale weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Vale
- Vale SD 84School district134FTE
- Office of the Secretary of the InteriorFederal government · Department of the Interior96
- Jamieson ProducePacking fruits and vegetables52
- Bureau of Land ManagementFederal government · Department of the Interior42
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1 workplace with 20 or more staff, 52 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Vale’s 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 Malheur County and the Ontario, OR-ID metro.
Vale home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Vale$333,215
- 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.
- Vale17
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Vale address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Vale — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.