Safest Counties in West Virginia: 8 Ranked (2026)
The 8 West Virginia counties where police report enough to the FBI to build a reliable rate, ranked by violent crime, with home prices, asking rents and incomes where available.
West Virginia has 55 counties. Eight of them clear the reporting bar this page uses, and the gap between the quietest, Jefferson at 102 violent offenses per 100,000, and the busiest, Cabell at 470, is 4.6 to one. Beside each rate sits what homes there closed at over the last 12 months, from 10,232 closing records Resideline tracked across all 8 counties.
The crime rates here are built from the 693,068 residents those police agencies actually report on, over the months they reported. Each figure is a single county-wide figure, so treat this as a way to narrow a search rather than a verdict on any street.
We do not treat missing or conflicting crime data as zero. A county appears here only when its reporting clears our reliability threshold, and we set aside results that conflict materially with the state's own records. Whether a county is ranked depends on its crime reporting alone; whether it shows a price depends on whether Resideline tracked enough closings there.
The ranking
| # | County | Violent per 100k | Property per 100k | Median closed price | Median asking rent | Median income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jefferson | 102 | 585 | $390,000 | $2,050 | $92,550 |
| 2 | Putnam | 118 | 540 | $285,000 | $1,599 | $80,834 |
| 3 | Monongalia | 161 | 839 | $289,900 | $1,375 | $67,259 |
| 4 | Harrison | 176 | 1,143 | $195,000 | $1,150 | $63,576 |
| 5 | Wood | 190 | 1,592 | $173,000 | $1,080 | $59,516 |
| 6 | Raleigh | 336 | 2,546 | $173,500 | $1,145 | $55,834 |
| 7 | Kanawha | 434 | 2,488 | $163,000 | $1,038 | $62,137 |
| 8 | Cabell | 470 | 2,366 | $175,000 | $1,100 | $57,512 |
A closer look at each county
1. Jefferson County
Jefferson's violent crime rate is 102 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the West Virginia counties Resideline can measure. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. Homes changed hands at a median $390,000, around 211 percent of what the rest of this list recorded. Safe and expensive is the usual pairing on this list, and this is one of its clearest cases. Against what households there earn, a home costs 4.2 times median income, in the top quarter of this list. Property crime is low too, at 585 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.5 times the median comparable US county.
2. Putnam County
Putnam records 118 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the West Virginia counties measured here. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. Homes there closed at a median of $285,000, about 154 percent of the median across this list. Median household income is $80,834, roughly 129 percent of the level across this list. Property crime is low too, at 540 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.5 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $1,599 a month.
3. Monongalia County
At 161 violent offenses per 100,000, Monongalia sits in the middle range of the places on this list. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. A median closing price of $289,900 puts it at roughly 157 percent of the middle figure for this list. A typical home costs 4.3 years of the median household's income, near the top of this list. Property offenses run at 839 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. The median rental listing asks $1,375 a month. For prices at street level, see Morgantown, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
4. Harrison County
Harrison's violent crime rate is 176 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the West Virginia counties Resideline can measure. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. The median closed price, $195,000, sits near the center of the counties measured. Its property rate, 1,143 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. Asking rents run about $1,150 a month.
5. Wood County
At 190 violent offenses per 100,000, Wood sits in the middle range of the places on this list. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. Homes there closed at a median of $173,000, close to the middle of this list. The ratio of price to local household income is 2.9, among the gentlest on this list. Property offenses run at 1,592 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. Asking rents run about $1,080 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Parkersburg, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
6. Raleigh County
Raleigh's violent crime rate is 336 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the West Virginia counties Resideline can measure. That is 1.4 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the West Virginia statewide rate of 282 per 100,000 in the same data. At $173,500, its median closed price is unremarkable against the rest of this list. Its property rate of 2,546 per 100,000 is in the top quarter here, and 2.1 times the median comparable US county. At $1,145 a month in asking rent, the gross return here is in the top quarter of the counties measured.
7. Kanawha County
Kanawha records 434 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the highest quarter of the West Virginia counties measured here. That is 1.8 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the West Virginia statewide rate of 282 per 100,000 in the same data. Homes there closed at a median of $163,000, close to the middle of this list. The ratio of price to local household income is 2.6, among the gentlest on this list. Its property rate of 2,488 per 100,000 is in the top quarter here, and 2.1 times the median comparable US county. At $1,038 a month in asking rent, the gross return here is in the top quarter of the counties measured. For prices at street level, see Charleston, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
8. Cabell County
At 470 violent offenses per 100,000, Cabell sits in the highest quarter of the places on this list. That is 1.9 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the West Virginia statewide rate of 282 per 100,000 in the same data. At $175,000, its median closed price is unremarkable against the rest of this list. Its property rate, 2,366 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties. The median rental listing asks $1,100 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Huntington, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
How to read this list
A rate like this averages everything inside the area, from its downtown to its farmland, and the spread within one of them is often wider than the spread between them. Use it to shortlist, then look at the specific address and the block it sits on.
Prices and rents are as of September 9, 2026, from closings and rental listings Resideline tracks over the previous 12 months; a price is shown where at least 100 closings were tracked and a rent where at least 50 listings were. Rent figures are the median asking rent on listings, not lease figures. Crime is the 2025 FBI Crime Data Explorer release, measured for the whole county over the months each agency reported, and violent crime means murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Household income is the Census SAIPE 2024 estimate of the county's median household income; population is the Census 2024 estimate. Where this page compares a rate with the median comparable US county, that figure (245 violent and 1188 property offenses per 100,000) is the median across the 874 US counties with at least 50,000 residents whose agencies reported on 90 percent or more of them for the year.
Sources and related pages
- •Crime: FBI Crime Data Explorer, agency-level offense counts for 2025, aggregated by county over the months each agency reported.
- •Income: Census SAIPE 2024, county median household income.
- •Population: Census county population estimates, vintage 2024.
- •Prices and rents: Resideline's tracked closings and rental listings, 12 months to September 2026.
- •Related: Safest counties by state; Does crime actually lower home prices?; West Virginia housing market; Safest counties in Kentucky; Safest counties in Maryland; Safest counties in Ohio; Safest counties in Pennsylvania; Safest counties in Virginia.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the safest county in West Virginia?
Of the 8 West Virginia counties measured here, Jefferson County records the lowest violent crime rate at 102 offenses per 100,000 residents, against 245 for the median comparable US county. Homes there closed at a median of $390,000 over the last 12 months.
Is this every county in West Virginia?
No. It covers 8 of the state's 55 counties, the ones where police agencies report at least 90 percent of the population to the FBI, the area has at least 50,000 residents, and the resulting rate falls inside the sanity bounds we apply. Whether Resideline has enough sales there decides only whether a price is shown. No place above 150,000 residents was excluded.
Is this crime rate for my neighborhood?
No. The FBI publishes these figures for whole counties, so every part of a county carries the same number here, from its densest district to its farmland. It is useful for narrowing a search and not a substitute for looking at a specific address.
Are these rents asking rents or lease rents?
They are the median asking rent on rental listings in the county over the last 12 months. That is what landlords advertised, a guide to the market rather than a lease figure.
About the author
Jeffrey Batista
Jeffrey Batista is the founder of Resideline, a real estate technology company building institutional grade valuation and investment analysis tools for real estate investors.
A software engineer with more than 10 years of experience, Jeffrey has worked across full stack development, infrastructure, data engineering, machine learning, and large scale systems. He left his engineering career to build Resideline full time.
Jeffrey is also a real estate investor with nearly a decade of hands on experience buying, renovating, managing, and analyzing residential properties. His experience on both sides of the industry, as an engineer and an investor, led him to build Resideline after seeing how fragmented and outdated many of the tools available to individual investors were.
Today, he leads the development of Resideline's proprietary data infrastructure, automated valuation models, rental analytics, and investment underwriting technology.