Brighton, Vermont.
Typical home $258,732 (+1.7% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$645 (+91%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,208 +2%
- $254,523$258,732 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $8,661 +3%
- $250,071$258,732 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.
- Brighton$1,358
- Vermont$2,057
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Brighton, VT rose 1.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Brighton, Essex County, Vermont
Brighton is a town of 1,157 people in Essex County. 51% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 49% are rented. Unemployment in Essex County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Brighton is a small Vermont town in Essex County, home to a modest number of people. Owners and renters live here in close to equal measure, and a four-year degree is held by a minority of adults, as in many rural towns. Winters are long and cold, with a great deal of snow, while July is pleasantly warm and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, government and manufacturing. A good number work from home. Across Essex County, the largest workplaces include the Canaan School District, the Brighton School District and Sweet Tree Holdings 1, a syrup and flavoring maker. Unemployment across the county is lower than a year ago, though there are slightly fewer jobs than the year before.
Things to do. Brighton State Park, a protected area in or beside town, and the Clyde River, also in or beside town, are close at hand. A short drive away is Lake Willoughby, a lake well suited to a day by the water. For an evening out, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, a theatre, is a longer drive away.
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- 554households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Essex County had 1,059 jobs in 2025, 0.9% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 24° and lows near 3°; warmest in July, with highs near 76° and lows near 55°. About 115 inches of snow and 45 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Island Pond weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Essex County
- Canaan School DistrictSchool district35FTE
- Brighton School DistrictSchool district33FTE
- Sweet Tree Holdings 1Syrup, flavoring, manufacturing29
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1 workplace with 20 or more staff, 29 people in all across the county; Brighton has two of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (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
FEMA rates every natural hazard here relatively low or very low.
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Essex County, 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 Essex County.
Brighton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Brighton$258,732
- Vermont$391,900
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Brighton6
Zip codes with a Brighton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Brighton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.