Bear, Delaware.
Typical home $412,430 (+1.0% in a year), asking rent $2,327 (+1.1%). Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,139 (+111%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $3,937 +1%
- $408,493$412,430 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $82,692 +25%
- $329,738$412,430 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.
- Bear$2,165
- Delaware$2,126
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Bear, DE rose 1.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Bear, DE rose 1.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Bear runs $523/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $648 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,850 a month against $2,327 rent: a $2,165 mortgage payment, plus $244 property tax and $442 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Bear
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,850
- Renting$2,327
- Mortgage only$2,165
Property tax · $244/mo 0.71% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for New Castle County, DE
Insurance & upkeep · $442/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Bear, New Castle County, Delaware
Bear, in New Castle County, had 23,060 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $91,687 a year and half less, against $91,166 across New Castle County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 65% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 35% are rented. Unemployment in New Castle County was 4.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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. Bear is a community in New Castle County, Delaware, with a population somewhat younger than many older suburban towns. Household incomes are close to the county's, and most homes are lived in by their owners, though rents run high. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, summers are hot, and rain and melted snow fall in good measure through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, banks, insurance and property, and professional and business services. Within Bear itself, some of the larger workplaces are Reybold Group, Food Lion and Wawa. A typical commute is a fairly short one, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away are Fort Delaware, a historic fort, and Fort Casimir, another early fort, along with the Wilmington and Western Railroad, a railroad museum. Farther afield, a longer drive takes you to Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, a botanical garden, and to the Delaware Art Museum. Belltown Run, a small stream, runs in or beside town.
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- 8,746households
- 32%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. New Castle County had 306,171 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 66°. About 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Newark Ag Farm weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bear
- Reybold GroupResidential building rental or leasing192
- Food LionGrocery stores88
- Wawa SiteConvenience store37
- Wawa SiteConvenience store36
- Royale Pigments & ChemicalsInorganic chemicals merchant wholesalers27
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 380 people in all. 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of BearRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bear’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 New Castle County and the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro.
Bear home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bear$412,430
- Delaware$405,061
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Bear listings, and the typical home goes pending in 20 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Bear33.58%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Bear20
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bear75
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Bear31
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Bear$422,310
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Bear95.23%
Zip codes with a Bear address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bear — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.