Whitefish, Montana.
Typical home $870,463 (+1.7% in a year), asking rent $2,790 (+7.0%). Kalispell, MT metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,997 (+191%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $14,919 +2%
- $855,544$870,463 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $162,946 +23%
- $707,517$870,463 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.
- Whitefish$4,569
- Montana$2,453
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Whitefish, MT rose 1.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Whitefish, MT rose 7.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Whitefish runs $3,133/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $3,660 in Jan 2025.
That is $5,923 a month against $2,790 rent: a $4,569 mortgage payment, plus $423 property tax and $932 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Whitefish
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$5,923
- Renting$2,790
- Mortgage only$4,569
Property tax · $423/mo 0.58% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Flathead County, MT
Insurance & upkeep · $932/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 Whitefish, Flathead County, Montana
Whitefish is a city of 7,751 people in Flathead County. Half its households earn more than $73,811 a year and half less, against $73,925 across Flathead County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 62% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 38% are rented. Unemployment in Flathead County was 2.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% 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. Whitefish is a small city in Flathead County, Montana, with an older population than most of the country. Incomes sit close to the county's, and homes here cost a good deal more to buy or rent than in most American towns. Most households own the place they live in, and a large majority of adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in town are Logan Health Whitefish, the Whitefish elementary schools and Safeway. Commutes are short, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. Whitefish Lake sits in or beside town, as does Whitefish Lake State Park, and Whitefish Mountain Resort, a ski area, is a short drive away. Lake McDonald is a longer drive. Winters are cold and snowy, and summers are warm.
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- 4,302households
- 57%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 24%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Flathead County had 51,035 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 29° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 50°. About 63 inches of snow and 20 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Whitefish weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Whitefish
- Logan Health WhitefishCritical access hospital350FTE
- Whitefish Elem SchoolsSchool district163FTE
- SafewaySupermarkets and other grocery stores127
- The Springs at WhitefishContinuing care retirement communities78
- Whitefish Super 1 FoodsGrocery stores76
- Whitefish H S SchoolsSchool district71FTE
- Montana Coffee Traders, Inc.- WFBaked goods stores55
- TownePlace Suites - WhitefishHotels33
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 857 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (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
- AvalanchesVery high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Whitefish’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very high. 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 Flathead County and the Kalispell, MT metro.
Whitefish home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Whitefish$870,463
- Montana$467,275
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Whitefish listings — the market is heating up.
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.
- Whitefish18.49%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Whitefish298
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Whitefish42
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Whitefish$1,000,717
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Whitefish address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Whitefish — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Whitefish
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 59937 | Whitefish | 15,114 | $2,800 | $876,645 |
| 59927 | Olney | 270 | — | $549,547 |