Williston, North Dakota.
Typical home $371,767 (+4.9% in a year), asking rent $1,288 (-4.5%). Williston, ND metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$853 (+78%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,265 +5%
- $354,502$371,767 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $55,154 +17%
- $316,612$371,767 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.
- Williston$1,951
- North Dakota$1,526
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 22 years.
Typical home values in Williston, ND rose 4.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Williston, ND fell 4.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Williston runs $1,272/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $2,560 a month against $1,288 rent: a $1,951 mortgage payment, plus $211 property tax and $398 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Williston
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$2,560
- Renting$1,288
- Mortgage only$1,951
Property tax · $211/mo 0.68% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Williams County, ND
Insurance & upkeep · $398/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 Williston, Williams County, North Dakota
Williston is a city of 29,160 people in Williams County. Half its households earn more than $79,381 a year and half less, against $85,595 across Williams County; 8% of its people live below the poverty line. 47% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 53% are rented. Unemployment in Williston was 2.5% in August 2026, and Williams County had 1.9% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then farming.
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. Williston is a city in Williams County, North Dakota, and its people tend to be younger than in most of the country. Incomes here run below the county's, and fewer homes are lived in by their owners than you might expect, so renting is common. Winters are long and cold, with January highs well below freezing and lows near zero, and a good deal of snow, while July brings warm days and the year stays fairly dry.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in farming, forestry and mining, with shops, restaurants and hotels also employing a good share. The largest workplaces in Williston include the Williston Basin 7 Schools, Walmart and Mercy Medical Center. Most people have a short drive to work, and the job market has softened a little across Williams County over the past year.
Things to do. A short drive away, Little Muddy Creek offers a stretch of river to explore. Farther out, Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site is a protected area that recalls the fur-trading past, and the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center is a museum. Both are a longer drive from town.
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- 11,360households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Williams County had 26,622 jobs in 2025, 1.9% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 22° and lows near 1°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 56°. About 48 inches of snow and 15 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Williston Sloulin International Airport weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Williston
- Williston Basin 7 SchoolsSchool district716FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters473
- Mercy Medical CenterCritical access hospital288FTE
- Bethel Lutheran Nursing and Rehabilitation CenterSkilled nursing facilities218
- Menards"home centers"164
- Copper Tip Energy ServicesServicing oil and gas wells on a contract basis152
- Mountrail Williams Electric CooperativeDistribution of electric power135
- Triangle ElectricElectrical work121
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 22 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,391 people in all. School districts come 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Hailrelatively high in parts of WillistonRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Williston’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 Williams County and the Williston, ND metro.
Williston home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Williston$371,767
- North Dakota$290,657
- 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 Williston listings, and the typical home goes pending in 18 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.
- Williston22.59%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Williston18
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Williston107
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Williston35
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Williston$365,223
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Williston99.38%
Zip codes with a Williston address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Williston — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Williston
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 58801 | Williston | 34,277 | $1,288 | $370,443 |
| 58831 | Alexander | 1,089 | — | $343,290 |