Bellingham, WA
Metropolitan statistical area, CBSA 13380 · 48.83, -121.87
7 findings fired for Bellingham, WA this run, against a typical home value of $607,630 in September 2026 and covered employment of 92,566 in 2026 Q1.
- 44th pct · 218th of 393 US metro areas · median 105,500
Total employment in the BLS OEWS occupational tables for this metro area. It is an occupational survey total, not the QCEW payroll count below.
An estimate: the sum of the member counties BLS publishes, not BLS's own metro row, whose boundaries follow each year's delineation. The arithmetic is printed below.
- 94th pct · 23rd of 379 US metro areas · median $305,707
Zillow Home Value Index, metro file, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- 83rd pct · 65th of 382 US metro areas · median $1,504
Zillow Observed Rent Index, metro file.
- 96th pct · 16th of 379 US metro areas · median 16.9
typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month.
- 23rd pct · 289th of 379 US metro areas · median 2.0%
Zillow's own twelve-month change on the metro row.
A percentile here is a min-max scaling of average rank: the smallest published value in the cohort is 0 and the largest is 100, and tied values share the average of the ranks they span. It is not the share of entities below the value, so 0 means smallest, not none below. Entities that did not publish the metric are outside the cohort entirely and are counted in neither the rank nor its denominator.
Occupation mix #
The 30 largest detailed occupations and all 22 SOC major groups in Bellingham, WA, from the bundled BLS OEWS release.
| SOC | Occupation | Jobs | Mean annual wage | Location quotient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35-3023 | Fast Food and Counter Workers | 2,830 | $39,360 | 1.25 |
| 41-2031 | Retail Salespersons | 2,830 | $41,610 | 1.23 |
| 31-1120 | Home Health and Personal Care Aides | 2,350 | $45,020 | 0.93 |
| 41-2011 | Cashiers | 2,190 | $39,780 | 1.21 |
| 29-1141 | Registered Nurses | 1,850 | not published | 0.93 |
| 37-2011 | Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners | 1,510 | $46,110 | 1.16 |
| 35-3031 | Waiters and Waitresses | 1,450 | $59,820 | 1.09 |
| 43-9061 | Office Clerks, General | 1,350 | $52,520 | 0.93 |
| 53-7065 | Stockers and Order Fillers | 1,330 | $43,830 | 0.80 |
| 11-1021 | General and Operations Managers | 1,270 | $150,120 | 0.62 |
| 25-9045 | Teaching Assistants, Except Postsecondary | 1,200 | $51,280 | 1.44 |
| 53-3032 | Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers | 1,200 | $64,520 | 0.99 |
| 43-3031 | Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 1,140 | $58,040 | 1.42 |
| 53-7062 | Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand | 1,120 | $45,610 | 0.65 |
| 35-2014 | Cooks, Restaurant | 1,090 | $45,550 | 1.32 |
| 47-2061 | Construction Laborers | 1,030 | $63,050 | 1.60 |
| 43-4051 | Customer Service Representatives | 1,000 | $49,830 | 0.65 |
| 51-2090 | Miscellaneous Assemblers and Fabricators | 960 | $49,180 | 1.16 |
| 47-2031 | Carpenters | 950 | $79,090 | 2.41 |
| 41-1011 | First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers | 920 | $60,630 | 1.40 |
| 43-1011 | First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers | 920 | $79,260 | 1.09 |
| 49-9071 | Maintenance and Repair Workers, General | 880 | $59,830 | 0.98 |
| 13-2011 | Accountants and Auditors | 870 | $93,020 | 1.02 |
| 43-6014 | Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive | 870 | $54,480 | 0.87 |
| 43-4171 | Receptionists and Information Clerks | 810 | $44,160 | 1.52 |
| 25-2021 | Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education | 790 | $98,520 | 0.97 |
| 31-1131 | Nursing Assistants | 790 | $49,540 | 0.93 |
| 41-4012 | Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products | 730 | $92,740 | 1.00 |
| 47-1011 | First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers | 730 | $111,900 | 1.53 |
| 13-1082 | Project Management Specialists | 660 | $109,760 | 1.06 |
| SOC | Occupation | Jobs | Mean annual wage | Location quotient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43-0000 | Office and Administrative Support Occupations | 10,380 | $55,890 | 1.00 |
| 35-0000 | Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations | 8,900 | $47,090 | 1.11 |
| 41-0000 | Sales and Related Occupations | 8,720 | $54,960 | 1.11 |
| 53-0000 | Transportation and Material Moving Occupations | 6,710 | $53,840 | 0.83 |
| 51-0000 | Production Occupations | 6,360 | $58,420 | 1.26 |
| 47-0000 | Construction and Extraction Occupations | 6,080 | $81,910 | 1.61 |
| 25-0000 | Educational Instruction and Library Occupations | 6,040 | $75,950 | 1.13 |
| 13-0000 | Business and Financial Operations Occupations | 5,690 | $91,840 | 0.92 |
| 29-0000 | Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations | 5,010 | $117,410 | 0.87 |
| 31-0000 | Healthcare Support Occupations | 4,710 | $49,750 | 1.01 |
| 11-0000 | Management Occupations | 4,020 | $150,870 | 0.62 |
| 49-0000 | Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations | 3,600 | $71,170 | 1.01 |
| 37-0000 | Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations | 3,020 | $46,380 | 1.13 |
| 33-0000 | Protective Service Occupations | 2,080 | $86,330 | 0.94 |
| 39-0000 | Personal Care and Service Occupations | 2,010 | $50,390 | 1.05 |
| 15-0000 | Computer and Mathematical Occupations | 1,990 | $109,130 | 0.64 |
| 21-0000 | Community and Social Service Occupations | 1,900 | $71,380 | 1.21 |
| 17-0000 | Architecture and Engineering Occupations | 1,310 | $108,170 | 0.85 |
| 27-0000 | Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations | 1,080 | $66,240 | 0.89 |
| 19-0000 | Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations | 970 | $91,370 | 1.12 |
| 23-0000 | Legal Occupations | 460 | $100,640 | 0.60 |
| 45-0000 | Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations | 340 | $53,950 | 1.33 |
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, metropolitan area tables, committed to this repository rather than fetched. A location quotient above 1 means the occupation is more concentrated here than in the United States as a whole; wages are means, not medians, and BLS suppresses a wage where its sample is too thin.
Housing #
The typical home in the Bellingham, WA metro was worth $607,630 in September 2026.
25 months to September 2026. Rent: $1,951 in September 2026.
Zillow Home Value Index and Observed Rent Index, metro files, joined by the RegionID recorded in the place manifest. Both are smoothed indices of the middle third of the market, not sale prices.
Employment, rolled up from member counties #
About 92,566 covered jobs across the 1 member county BLS published.
- jobs = sum of QCEW third-month employment across the 1 of 1 member counties BLS publishes.
- 92,566 = 92,566
| County | FIPS |
|---|---|
| Whatcom County, WA | 53073 |
The place manifest names 1 member county for this metro, fewer than the 5 a cohort needs before a percentile means anything, so no within-metro position is offered for its counties. The positions above are against the other 392 metropolitan areas, which is a cohort that does not depend on the county pull.
There are no QCEW metro employment totals here, and that is a property of the data rather than an omission: BLS does publish MSA area codes (C####), but lib/economy's QCEW reader handles only county (SSCCC), state (SS000) and national (US000) rows at aggregation levels 74, 54 and 14, and the /api/economy route regex rejects anything else. So this figure is a sum of member counties, labelled an estimate, with every county it could not count named.
National indicator context #
None of these series is keyed to this metro area. They are national, gauge, single-state or port series, shown as context for the numbers above.
| Indicator | Latest | Unit | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi River at Memphis, stage | not published | ft | no data |
| Mississippi River at St. Louis, stage | not published | ft | no data |
| Ohio River at Louisville, stage | 17.95 | ft | ok |
| Missouri River at St. Joseph, stage | not published | ft | no data |
| Colorado River below Hoover Dam, flow (Hoover releases) | 5,170.00 | ft³/s | ok |
| Texas reservoirs, statewide percent full | 72.20 | % | ok |
| Laredo truck crossings, monthly | 258,700.00 | trucks | ok |
| Los Angeles + Long Beach container volume, annual | 10,513,167.00 | TEU | watch |
| Containerships waiting for a berth, all US ports | 7.00 | ships | ok |
| Shanghai to Los Angeles container rate | 7,848.00 | $ per 40 ft box | watch |
| US diesel retail price | not published | $ per gallon | no data |
| WTI crude oil, spot | 101.91 | $ per barrel | watch |
| 30-year fixed mortgage rate | 7.40 | % | watch |
| Housing starts, annual rate | 1,275.00 | thousands of units | ok |
| Building permits, annual rate | 1,403.00 | thousands of units | ok |
| Case-Shiller US home price index | 337.31 | index, Jan 2000 = 100 | ok |
| Unemployment rate | 4.20 | % | ok |
| US goods and services trade balance, monthly | -105,572.00 | $ millions | ok |
| Retail sales excluding food services, monthly | 652,115.00 | $ millions | ok |
lib/indicators has no geographic selection: every registry entry is a United States, gauge, Texas, port, crossing or world series, and no entry is metro-keyed. Reading these as this metro's own readings would be wrong.
What changed #
Bellingham, WA: 7 findings, 2 at a watch level and 5 noted
watchBellingham, WA's price-to-rent ratio of 25.9 ranks 16th of 379 US metro areas, a watch level here: price-to-rent in the top tenth of US metro areas (position among the metro areas that published both ZHVI and ZORI this month; not an official level). The previous published period is not in this table, so this is a standing level rather than a change.
Period 2026-09.Show the arithmetic
- test: priceToRent percentile = 96.03174603174604 >= 90
- typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month
position among the metro areas that published both ZHVI and ZORI this month; not an official level
watchBellingham, WA's price-to-rent ratio is 25.9, a watch level here: typical home value worth 25 or more years of typical rent (typical home value / (typical rent × 12), Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level). The previous published period is not in this table, so this is a standing level rather than a change.
Period 2026-09.Show the arithmetic
- test: priceToRent = 25.94822983333617 >= 25
- typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month
typical home value / (typical rent × 12), Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level
noteBellingham, WA's typical asking rent fell 0.4% from $1,959 in August 2026 to $1,951 in September 2026, on Zillow ZORI.
Period 2026-09.Show the arithmetic
- -0.4% = (1951.4180171722508 - 1958.7990025194085) / 1958.7990025194085 × 100
- 1951.4180171722508 = Zillow ZORI, 2026-09
- 1958.7990025194085 = Zillow ZORI, 2026-08
noteBellingham, WA's typical home value of $607,630 ranks 23rd of 379 US metro areas, against a median of $305,707.
Period 2026-09.Show the arithmetic
- 94 on the 0-to-100 scale across 379 US metro areas that published home.latest
position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level
noteThe next Unemployment rate (BLS Employment Situation, monthly) covering Bellingham, WA is due between 2026-10-30 and 2026-11-13, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern.
Show the arithmetic
- window = 2026-10-30 to 2026-11-13, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern
estimated from the publisher's past release pattern; not an announced date
The full Bellingham, WA brief, with the arithmetic behind every sentence.
Metro briefs are thinner by construction: with no QCEW metro path, their findings come from Zillow's metro home value and rent rows, the county rollup, and nearby crossings and ports.