Clayton, Delaware.
Typical home $410,966 (+2.9% in a year). Dover, DE metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,201 (+126%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,586 +3%
- $399,380$410,966 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $88,282 +27%
- $322,684$410,966 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.
- Clayton$2,157
- Delaware$2,126
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Clayton, DE rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Clayton, Kent County, Delaware
Clayton is a town of 3,961 people in Kent County. Half its households earn more than $107,307 a year and half less, against $74,477 across Kent County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 90% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 10% are rented. Unemployment in Kent County was 5.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Clayton is a small Delaware town in Kent County where nearly all homes are lived in by their owners, a good deal more than is typical across the country. Household incomes run well above the county's, and fewer people live below the poverty line than in many places. Winters are cold, with some snow, and summers turn quite warm, with a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, government and restaurants and hotels also employing many. Across Kent County, some of the largest workplaces are Bayhealth Hospital Kent Campus, Delaware State University and the Caesar Rodney School District. The typical commute is fairly long, and a modest number of people work from home.
Things to do. Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area, and Blackbird State Forest are both a short drive away and suit a day outdoors. Dover Motor Speedway, a race track, is also a short drive away. Closer to home, the Leipsic River and Mill Creek run in or beside town.
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- 1,195households
- 32%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 33 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kent County had 70,905 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 44° and lows near 28°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 69°. About 13 inches of snow and 48 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Dover weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kent County
- Bayhealth Hospital Kent CampusGeneral hospital1,745FTE
- Delaware Technical Community College-TerryUniversity or college1,602
- Perdue FoodsPoultry processing1,444
- Caesar Rodney School DistrictSchool district1,121FTE
- Delaware State UniversityUniversity or college1,029
- Capital School DistrictSchool district834FTE
- WalmartGeneral warehousing and storage829
- Smyrna School DistrictSchool district696FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 113 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 13,531 people in all across the county; Clayton has two of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Clayton’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 Kent County and the Dover, DE metro.
Clayton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Clayton$410,966
- Delaware$405,061
- 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.
- Clayton15
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Clayton6
Zip codes with a Clayton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Clayton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.