Chelsea, Massachusetts.
Typical home $518,838 (+1.1% in a year), asking rent $2,632 (+1.8%). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,220 (+81%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,743 +1%
- $513,096$518,838 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $59,795 +13%
- $459,043$518,838 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.
- Chelsea$2,723
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 28 years.
Typical home values in Chelsea, MA rose 1.1% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Asking rents in Chelsea, MA rose 1.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Chelsea runs $932/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,131 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,564 a month against $2,632 rent: a $2,723 mortgage payment, plus $285 property tax and $555 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Chelsea
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$3,564
- Renting$2,632
- Mortgage only$2,723
Property tax · $285/mo 0.66% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Suffolk County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $555/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 Chelsea, Suffolk County, Massachusetts
Chelsea is a city of 40,787 people in Suffolk County. Half its households earn more than $72,179 a year and half less, against $95,631 across Suffolk County; 21% of its people live below the poverty line. 26% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 74% are rented. Unemployment in Chelsea was 4.6% in August 2026, and Suffolk County had 0.2% 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. Chelsea is a small city just across the water from Boston, and its residents are younger than in many American towns. Most households rent rather than own, and incomes run well below the county's. Homes and rents here cost a good deal, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than you might expect this close to a major university city. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers turn warm, with July the warmest and a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, or in the building trades, with others in professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Chelsea are Chelsea Schools, Demoulas Super Markets and the Veterans Home Chelsea. The commute is fairly long, and only a small number of people work from home. Unemployment has eased over the past year, though across Suffolk County the number of jobs slipped slightly.
Things to do. The Freedom Trail and the Bunker Hill Monument are in or beside town, and the Mystic River runs along the city's edge. A short drive brings you to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, a large art museum, and to Fenway Park, the well-known baseball stadium. Boston Common, a public garden in the middle of the city, is also a short drive away.
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- 13,716households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 21%below the poverty line
- 33 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Suffolk County had 712,462 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 66°. About 49 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Boston Logan International Airport weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Chelsea
- Chelsea SchoolsSchool district929FTE
- Demoulas Super Markets725
- Veterans Home ChelseaSkilled nursing facilities372
- Kayem FoodsProcessed meats manufacturing323
- Chelsea Carrier AnnexMail and parcel delivery271
- Chelsea Jewish LifecareNursing homes269
- State GardenSalads, fresh or refrigerated, manufacturing252
- JSB Industries ChelseaBakeries with baking from flour on the premises, retailing not for immediate consumption239
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 22 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,687 people in all. 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
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Chelsea’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 Suffolk County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
Chelsea home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Chelsea$518,838
- Massachusetts$655,219
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Chelsea listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Chelsea25.77%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Chelsea62
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Chelsea17
Zip codes with a Chelsea address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Chelsea — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.