Waco, Kentucky.
Typical home $249,002 (-2.0% in a year). Richmond-Berea, KY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$700 (+115%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $5,105 -2%
- $254,107$249,002 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $41,185 +20%
- $207,817$249,002 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.
- Waco$1,307
- Kentucky$1,212
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 19 years.
Typical home values in Waco, KY fell 2.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Waco, Madison County, Kentucky
The Census does not count Waco on its own, so the figures here are Madison County's. Half the county's households earn more than $63,351 a year and half less; 15% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 62% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 38% are rented. Unemployment in Madison County was 4.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Madison County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Waco is a small town in Madison County, Kentucky, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Winters are cold, with freezing nights common from January into early spring, while summers are warm. Rain and melted snow fall fairly steadily through the year, so the weather tends to be damp as well as seasonal.
Work. Across Madison County, many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in shops, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. The county's job count has held nearly steady over the past year, and unemployment has edged up since last summer. Working from home is fairly uncommon, so most people make a regular trip to a workplace.
Things to do. The Red River is a river a short drive away, a good place for a quiet outing by the water. Roy Kidd Stadium, a stadium a short drive away, is another local destination for those who enjoy watching sport. Fort Boonesborough State Park, a protected area a longer drive away, offers a wider landscape to explore.
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- 37,051households
- 34.7median age
- 34%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What people in Madison County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Madison County had 36,855 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 43° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 64°. About 51 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cressy weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Madison County
- Eastern Kentucky UniversityUniversity or college2,463
- Madison County SchoolsSchool district1,570FTE
- Astemo Americas, LTD (Berea Plant 1)Shock absorbers, automotive, truck, and bus, manufacturing912
- Berea CollegeUniversity or college651
- Baptist Health RichmondGeneral hospital530FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters439
- SIMOS Insourcing SolutionsStaffing409
- EnerSys - Battery PlantLead acid storage batteries manufacturing350
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 74 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 9,495 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts 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
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Madison County, 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 Madison County and the Richmond-Berea, KY metro.
Waco home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Waco$249,002
- Kentucky$230,909
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
- Waco9
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Waco address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Waco — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.