Waco, Texas.
Typical home $192,729 (-1.0% in a year), asking rent $1,342 (+0.8%). Waco, TX metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$535 (+112%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,924 -1%
- $194,653$192,729 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $22,035 +13%
- $170,694$192,729 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$1,012
- Texas$1,556
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 29 years.
Typical home values in Waco, TX fell 1.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Waco, TX rose 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Waco runs $105/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $276 in Oct 2023.
That is $1,447 a month against $1,342 rent: a $1,012 mortgage payment, plus $229 property tax and $206 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Waco
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$1,447
- Renting$1,342
- Mortgage only$1,012
Property tax · $229/mo 1.42% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for McLennan County, TX
Insurance & upkeep · $206/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 Waco, McLennan County, Texas
Waco is a city of 138,486 people in McLennan County. Half its households earn more than $54,365 a year and half less, against $66,643 across McLennan County; 23% of its people live below the poverty line. 49% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 51% are rented. Unemployment in Waco was 4.5% in August 2026, and McLennan County had 0.2% 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. Waco is a city whose residents are young on the whole, with a median age well below what is typical for older communities. Fewer households own their homes than rent them, and household incomes run below the county's, with a larger share of people living below the poverty line than you might expect. Winters are mild and the summers are hot, with little or no snow and a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in town are Waco ISD, Ascension Providence and the Veterans Health Administration. Job numbers across McLennan County have held roughly level over the past year, and commutes are short.
Things to do. Cameron Park is a large park in or beside town, and Cameron Park Zoo sits in the same part of the city. Waco Lake, a reservoir, is also in or beside town. A short drive away, the Mayborn Museum Complex and the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum offer indoor outings.
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- 53,906households
- 29%of adults have a degree
- 23%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. McLennan County had 122,992 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 58° and lows near 36°; warmest in August, with highs near 95° and lows near 75°. About 38 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Waco Dam weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Waco
- Waco ISDSchool district2,214FTE
- Sanderson Farms Waco ProcessingPoultry processing1,164
- AccentCare, Inc.Home health care1,071
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs1,057
- Ascension ProvidenceGeneral hospital990FTE
- Chaparral InsulationInsulation, boiler, duct and pipe, installation962
- Mars Wrigley Confectionery USChocolate covered candy bars made from purchased chocolate850
- Abbvie -WacoAdrenal medicinal preparations manufacturing830
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 122 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 21,045 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Heat wavesrelatively high in parts of WacoRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Waco’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 McLennan County and the Waco, TX 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$192,729
- Texas$296,424
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Waco listings, and the typical home goes pending in 57 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.
- Waco27.67%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Waco57
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Waco729
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Waco133
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Waco$231,904
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Waco96.66%
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.
Zip codes in Waco
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 76706 | Waco | 41,627 | $1,379 | $248,231 |
| 76708 | Waco | 27,790 | $1,586 | $223,099 |
| 76710 | Waco | 23,329 | $1,234 | $243,395 |
| 76707 | Waco | 15,879 | $1,330 | $139,778 |
| 76711 | Waco | 9,676 | $1,363 | $139,849 |
| 76704 | Waco | 7,018 | $1,418 | $114,760 |
| 76701 | Waco | 1,871 | $1,342 | $307,341 |