Cranford, New Jersey.
Typical home $773,798 (+6.9% in a year), asking rent $3,119 (+2.2%). New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,112 (+108%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $49,836 +7%
- $723,963$773,798 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $174,222 +29%
- $599,576$773,798 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.
- Cranford$4,061
- New Jersey$3,019
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Cranford, NJ rose 6.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Cranford, NJ rose 2.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Cranford runs $2,990/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $6,109 a month against $3,119 rent: a $4,061 mortgage payment, plus $1,219 property tax and $828 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Cranford
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$6,109
- Renting$3,119
- Mortgage only$4,061
Property tax · $1,219/mo 1.89% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Union County, NJ
Insurance & upkeep · $828/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 Cranford, Union County, New Jersey
Cranford, in Union County, had 2,032 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Union County was 5.0% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Union County work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Cranford is a small community in Union County, New Jersey, and the population is quite small for a town this close to the New York area. Homes here are valued well above what is typical across the country, and rents are high too. Household incomes are lower than the county's, and few residents live below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with the coldest weather in January, and summers are warm, with July the hottest month. Snow falls in a fair amount most winters, and the year brings a lot of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, transport, warehouses and utilities, and shops. The typical commute is a long one. Across Union County, unemployment is lower than it was a year earlier, and the number of jobs grew slightly last year. Among the county's largest workplaces are Merck and Co, Elizabeth Public Schools and Kean University.
Things to do. The better-known sights near Cranford are all a longer drive away. The Statue of Liberty is one of the best known tourist attractions in the country, and the Hudson River runs along the edge of the city beyond it. For a day among museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a longer drive away, and Central Park, a large garden in the middle of the city, is not far from it.
Report a mistake
- 973households
- 2%below the poverty line
- 41 mintypical commute
What people in Union County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Union County had 231,428 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 68°. About 26 inches of snow and 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cranford weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Union County
- Merck and CoMedicinal chemicals, uncompounded, manufacturing10,466
- Elizabeth Public SchoolsSchool district4,231FTE
- Bristol Myers Squibb - Summit West Cell Therapy ManufacturingGene therapy preparations manufacturing2,443
- Kenvue GHQ SummitCorporate offices2,057
- Kean UniversityUniversity or college2,020
- APM Terminals ElizabethLoading and unloading services at ports and harbors1,900
- Trinitas HospitalGeneral hospital1,738FTE
- Plainfield Public School DistrictSchool district1,318FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 329 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 65,678 people in all across the county; Cranford has two of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Cranford’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 Union County and the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
Cranford home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Cranford$773,798
- New Jersey$575,123
- 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 6 Cranford listings, and the typical home goes pending in 15 days — 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.
- Cranford16.18%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Cranford46
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Cranford22
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Cranford address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Cranford — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.