A typical Athens home is worth roughly $168,000
Builders were permitted 1 new home in 2025.
A typical home costs 3 years of income
About the same as across West Virginia. Try your own numbers below.
That covers a typical Athens home, with $67K to spare.
A two-bedroom rents for about $950 a month here, $0 less than owning.
An estimate, not a loan offer: payments of up to 28% of income, a 30-year fixed loan, Athens’s typical property tax (0.51% of value a year, from the Census) and insurance of about 0.35%. Mortgage insurance, HOA fees and other debts aren’t included.
A two-bedroom rents for about $950
Renters already here pay a median of $975.
Fair Market Rent a month, utilities included
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fair Market Rents by ZIP code (Mercer County, WV): the 40th-percentile rent plus utilities for a standard unit. Median rent and renters: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey.
1 new home permitted in 2025
Builders were permitted 1 new home in Athens in 2025. That's 0.7 per 1,000 residents, slower than across West Virginia (2.9). Over the past 10 years, Athens has permitted 1 homes in all.
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, Athens's population fell by 86 and no new homes were permitted.
Every year as a table
| Year | New homes | Single-family | 2+ per building | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (Jan–Aug) | 1 | 1 | 0 | $300,000 |
| 2025 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $300,000 |
| 2024 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2023 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2022 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2021 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2020 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2019 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2018 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2017 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2016 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2015 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2014 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2013 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2012 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2011 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2010 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2009 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2008 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2007 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2006 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2005 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $68,000 |
| 2004 | 3 | 3 | 0 | $260,000 |
| 2003 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $98,000 |
| 2002 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $75,000 |
| 2001 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2000 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $105,000 |
Homes authorized by building permits, counted in the year the permit was issued. U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey.
74% of Athens households own their home
Half of Athens’s homes were built before 1959.
West Virginia: 75% own.
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024.
Neighbors talk housing
What Athens buyers, sellers and renters are saying.
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Home values: Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), Zillow Research. Sales, days on market and supply: Redfin Data Center. Income, ownership, taxes and rent: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey. New homes: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey. Fair Market Rents: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Listings link to their publishers. The calculator is an estimate, not a loan offer.