Willow, Alaska.
Typical home $251,679 (-1.9% in a year). Anchorage, AK metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$520 (+65%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $4,941 -2%
- $256,620$251,679 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $6,011 +2%
- $245,668$251,679 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.
- Willow$1,321
- Alaska$2,089
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Willow, AK fell 1.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Willow, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska
Willow, in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, had 2,196 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $89,000 a year and half less, against $94,031 across Matanuska-Susitna Borough; 13% of its people live below the poverty line. 94% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 6% are rented. Unemployment in Matanuska-Susitna Borough was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Willow is a small Alaska community where residents tend to be older than in much of the country, and nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes sit a little below the borough's, and homes are valued at a level that many would call modest. Winters are long and hard, with the coldest weather in January, while July brings only mild warmth.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in professional and business services, shops, and farming, forestry and mining. Across Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the biggest workplaces include the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, Mat-su Regional MED CTR and Walmart. Commutes are long, and a good number of people work from home instead.
Things to do. Water is the main draw nearby. Wasilla Lake and Lake Lucille are lakes a longer drive away, and the Knik River is a river a longer drive away. For a day indoors, the Museum of Alaska Transportation & Industry is a museum, also a longer drive away.
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- 786households
- 30%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 65 mintypical commute
- 19%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Matanuska-Susitna Borough had 29,978 jobs in 2025, 1.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 15° and lows near -4°; warmest in July, with highs near 68° and lows near 52°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Willow West weather station, 17 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Matanuska-Susitna Borough
- Matanuska-Susitna Borough School DistrictSchool district1,796FTE
- Mat-su Regional MED CTRGeneral hospital698FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters466
- State of Alaska345
- Matanuska Telecom AssociationTelecommunications carriers, wired301
- Fred Meyer StoresWarehouse clubs and supercenters288
- Summit School ServicesSchool and employee bus transportation260
- Fred Meyer StoresWarehouse clubs and supercenters229
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 70 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,200 people in all across the county; Willow has one of its own. 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
- AvalanchesVery high
- EarthquakesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Willow’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 Matanuska-Susitna Borough and the Anchorage, AK metro.
Willow home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Willow$251,679
- Alaska$397,932
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Willow 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.
- Willow16.19%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Willow75
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Willow15
Zip codes with a Willow address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Willow — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.