Cortland, New York.
Typical home $210,596 (+5.6% in a year), asking rent $1,143 (+9.2%). Cortland, NY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$625 (+130%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,218 +6%
- $199,378$210,596 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $56,811 +37%
- $153,786$210,596 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.
- Cortland$1,105
- New York$2,755
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Cortland, NY rose 5.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Cortland, NY rose 9.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Cortland runs $637/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $1,780 a month against $1,143 rent: a $1,105 mortgage payment, plus $449 property tax and $225 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Cortland
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$1,780
- Renting$1,143
- Mortgage only$1,105
Property tax · $449/mo 2.56% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Cortland County, NY
Insurance & upkeep · $225/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 Cortland, Cortland County, New York
Cortland is a city of 17,556 people in Cortland County. Half its households earn more than $59,482 a year and half less, against $70,418 across Cortland County; 21% of its people live below the poverty line. 46% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 54% are rented. Unemployment in Cortland County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 3.3% more 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. Cortland is a small city in Cortland County, and its residents are young for an American community, with a median age well below that of much of the country. Incomes run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than you might expect, while homes are more often rented than lived in by their owners, so renting is common. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are mild and warm in July, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops, and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Cortland are Guthrie Cortland Medical Center, the Auxiliary Services Corporation of Suny Cortland, and Crown Park Rehabilitation and Nursing Center. Commutes are short, and few people work from home. Across Cortland County, jobs grew over the past year, and unemployment is little changed from a year earlier.
Things to do. Lake Como is a lake a short drive away, and Beaver Creek is a river that is also a short drive away. For a longer outing, Cayuga Lake is a lake a longer drive away, and Buttermilk Falls State Park is a protected area, also a longer drive away.
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- 7,019households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 21%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cortland County had 17,469 jobs in 2025, 3.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 58°. About 64 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Freeville Northeast weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cortland
- Guthrie Cortland Medical CenterGeneral hospital482FTE
- Auxiliary Services Corporation of Suny CortlandCafeteria food services contractors329
- Crown Park Rehabilitation and Nursing CenterSkilled nursing facilities266
- CrncNursing homes160
- ImageFIRST Healthcare LaundryLinen supply services97
- iSpice FoodsPepper manufacturing97
- CortlandMail and parcel delivery40
- Lady Jayne HotelsFamily restaurants, full service31
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,680 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Winter weatherrelatively high in parts of CortlandRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively 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 Cortland’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 Cortland County and the Cortland, NY metro.
Cortland home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Cortland$210,596
- New York$524,942
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Cortland 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.
- Cortland24.24%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Cortland52
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Cortland20
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Cortland address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Cortland — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.