Bel Air, Maryland.
Typical home $456,999 (+0.9% in a year), asking rent $2,085 (+3.9%). Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,172 (+95%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,257 +1%
- $452,742$456,999 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $68,031 +17%
- $388,968$456,999 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.
- Bel Air$2,399
- Maryland$2,230
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 22 years.
Typical home values in Bel Air, MD rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Bel Air, MD rose 3.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Bel Air runs $1,143/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,311 in Oct 2023.
That is $3,228 a month against $2,085 rent: a $2,399 mortgage payment, plus $340 property tax and $489 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Bel Air
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$3,228
- Renting$2,085
- Mortgage only$2,399
Property tax · $340/mo 0.89% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Harford County, MD
Insurance & upkeep · $489/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 Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland
Bel Air is a town of 10,661 people in Harford County. Half its households earn more than $74,605 a year and half less, against $112,265 across Harford County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 59% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 41% are rented. Unemployment in Harford County was 3.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Bel Air is a small town in Harford County, Maryland, where the people are somewhat older than in many places and most adults hold a four-year degree. Incomes in town run well below the county's, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though renters are a real part of the town too, and a typical home costs a good deal more to buy than a typical month's rent would suggest. Winters are cold, with January the chilliest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest; rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with professional and business services, shops and government also employing a good number of people. The largest workplaces in Bel Air include Harford County Public Schools, Upper Chesapeake Medical Center and Target. Unemployment across Harford County is lower than it was a year earlier, and the county has added a few more jobs than the year before. Commutes are fairly long for many people, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. Rocks State Park, a protected area, and Ladew Topiary Gardens, a botanical garden, are both a short drive away. For a longer outing, the National Aquarium and The Maryland Zoo are a longer drive away, as is Oriole Park at Camden Yards, a stadium.
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- 5,042households
- 43%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Harford County had 96,105 jobs in 2025, 1.0% 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 86° and lows near 68°. About 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Aberdeen Phillips Field weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bel Air
- Harford County Public SchoolsSchool district5,414FTE
- Upper Chesapeake Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,441FTE
- TargetDiscount department stores265
- Weis MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery108
- American Sentry SolarAddition, alteration and renovation, residential building96
- BEL AIRMail and parcel delivery90
- B.a.f.sFarm supply store40
- Aveda Institute-MarylandCareer school35
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 9 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,875 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. 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
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bel Air’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very low. 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 Harford County and the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD metro.
Bel Air home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bel Air$456,999
- Maryland$424,890
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Bel Air listings, and the typical home goes pending in 14 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.
- Bel Air34.60%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Bel Air14
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bel Air223
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Bel Air96
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Bel Air$417,051
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Bel Air100.65%
Zip codes with a Bel Air address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bel Air — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Bel Air
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21014 | Bel Air | 38,707 | $2,049 | $445,033 |
| 21015 | Bel Air | 30,013 | $2,163 | $479,102 |