A typical Cowen home is worth about $87,000
Down 1.8% in a year, 51% below the West Virginia typical home.
What kind of housing town is Cowen?
Read from the numbers below. The page puts what stands out first.
What it takes to buy in Cowen
Try your own numbers below.
That covers a typical Cowen home, with $159K to spare.
A two-bedroom rents for about $890 a month here, $390 more than owning.
An estimate, not a loan offer: payments of up to 28% of income, a 30-year fixed loan, the West Virginia typical property tax (0.53% of value a year, from the Census) and insurance of about 0.35%. Mortgage insurance, HOA fees and other debts aren’t included.
Up 4.1% in five years
Slower than West Virginia (22.5%).
Show as a table
| January | Cowen | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $65,000 | $122,000 |
| 2021 | $79,000 | $137,000 |
| 2022 | $86,000 | $149,000 |
| 2023 | $94,000 | $158,000 |
| 2024 | $91,000 | $163,000 |
| 2025 | $96,000 | $175,000 |
| 2026 | $83,000 | $176,000 |
| August 2026 | $87,000 | $180,000 |
A typical Cowen home worth $66K in February 2019 is worth about $87K today.
Zillow Home Value Index: the typical value of all homes (middle third), smoothed and seasonally adjusted, through August 2026.
A two-bedroom rents for about $890
Renters already here pay a median of $675, so moving in tends to cost more than staying put.
Fair Market Rent a month, utilities included
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fair Market Rents by ZIP code (Webster County, WV): the 40th-percentile rent plus utilities for a standard unit. Median rent and renters: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey.
No new homes permitted in 2014
No permits for new homes were issued in Cowen in 2014 or in any year since 2000.
Every year as a table
| Year | New homes | Single-family | 2+ per building | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2004 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2003 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2002 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2001 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
Cowen's permit office didn't report to the Census in 2014, so the 2014 figures are Census estimates.
Homes authorized by building permits, counted in the year the permit was issued. U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey.
57% of Cowen households own their home
Half of Cowen’s homes were built before 1972.
West Virginia: 75% own.
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024 · figures for a place this size carry wide margins of error.
Neighbors talk housing
What Cowen buyers, sellers and renters are saying.
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Home values: Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), Zillow Research, August 2026. 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.