Braintree, Massachusetts.
Typical home $729,592 (+3.0% in a year), asking rent $2,920 (+1.2%). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,918 (+100%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $21,372 +3%
- $708,220$729,592 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $125,036 +21%
- $604,556$729,592 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.
- Braintree$3,829
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Braintree, MA rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Braintree, MA rose 1.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Braintree runs $2,336/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,357 in Oct 2023.
That is $5,256 a month against $2,920 rent: a $3,829 mortgage payment, plus $646 property tax and $781 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Braintree
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$5,256
- Renting$2,920
- Mortgage only$3,829
Property tax · $646/mo 1.06% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Norfolk County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $781/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 Braintree, Norfolk County, Massachusetts
The Census does not count Braintree on its own, so the figures here are Norfolk County's. Half the county's households earn more than $130,739 a year and half less; 7% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 69% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 31% are rented. Unemployment in Norfolk County was 4.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Norfolk County work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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. Braintree is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, just south of Boston, and it is one of the places where the Adams family of American presidents came from. Across Norfolk County, most homes are lived in by their owners, and most adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are colder than in much of the country, with snow that is heavy for the season, and summers are warm and comfortable.
Work. Schools, hospitals and social care, professional and business services, banks, insurance and property, and shops are the main kinds of work that residents do. Unemployment across Norfolk County is lower than it was a year earlier, and the number of jobs there has grown slightly. Many residents work from home, a share that is worth noting for a town so close to a large city.
Things to do. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is a museum a short drive away, and the Arnold Arboretum, a botanical garden, is also a short drive away. For a longer outing, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston is a museum a longer drive away, and Fenway Park is a stadium a longer drive away.
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- 283,368households
- 40.9median age
- 59%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 32 mintypical commute
- 23%work from home
What people in Norfolk County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Norfolk County had 348,528 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 63°. About 51 inches of snow and 52 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Hingham weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Norfolk County
- Moderna Tx- NorwoodVirus vaccines manufacturing2,067
- SharkNinja1,308
- Brookline SchoolsSchool district1,265FTE
- Quincy SchoolsSchool district1,258FTE
- Siemens Healthcare DiagnosticsMedical diagnostics1,158
- Wellesley CollegeUniversity or college1,154
- Eversource - WestwoodDistribution of electric power1,083
- Stop & Shop Corporate OfficeBusiness services1,018
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 591 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 74,880 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Coastal floodingRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Norfolk County, 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 Norfolk County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
Braintree home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Braintree$729,592
- Massachusetts$655,219
- 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 4 Braintree listings, and the typical home goes pending in 15 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.
- Braintree27.81%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Braintree15
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Braintree94
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Braintree37
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Braintree$684,201
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Braintree101.17%
Zip codes with a Braintree address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Braintree — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.