Dayton, New Jersey.
Typical home $662,291 (+1.8% in a year), asking rent $3,525 . New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,883 (+118%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,748 +2%
- $650,543$662,291 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $173,691 +36%
- $488,600$662,291 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.
- Dayton$3,476
- New Jersey$3,019
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Dayton, NJ rose 1.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Dayton, Middlesex County, New Jersey
Dayton, in Middlesex County, had 8,138 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $151,902 a year and half less, against $111,549 across Middlesex County; 2% of its people live below the poverty line. 88% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 12% are rented. Unemployment in Middlesex County was 4.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Dayton is a community where nearly everyone owns the home they live in, and incomes run well above the county's. Residents are somewhat older than in many places, and a very large share of adults hold a four-year degree. Poverty is rare, and homes and rents both sit at the higher end of what is typical.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in banks, insurance and property, and in manufacturing. Across Middlesex County, the largest workplaces include Rutgers University-New Brunswick, RWJ University Hospital New Brunswick and Novo Nordisk. Commutes are fairly long, and a good number of people work from home. Unemployment across the county has eased compared with a year earlier, and the number of jobs has edged up.
Things to do. A short drive away are the Princeton Art Museum, the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, and Lake Carnegie, a reservoir. Farther afield, the Hudson River and the Raritan River offer a longer day out by the water. Winters are cold with a fair amount of snow, summers are warm, and rain and melted snow add up to a good deal over the year.
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- 2,641households
- 70%of adults have a degree
- 2%below the poverty line
- 34 mintypical commute
- 22%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Middlesex County had 431,665 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 66°. About 29 inches of snow and 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the New Brunswick Southeast weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Middlesex County
- Rutgers University-New BrunswickUniversity or college20,108
- RWJ University Hospital New BrunswickGeneral medical and surgical hospitals5,785
- Novo NordiskCorporate offices5,131
- HMH HospitalsCorporate, subsidiary, and regional managing offices3,950
- Robert Wood Johnson University HospiGeneral hospital3,943FTE
- JFK University Medical CenterGeneral hospital3,363FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage2,708
- St. Peters University HospitalGeneral hospital2,692FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 735 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 133,588 people in all across the county; Dayton has two of its own. Colleges come 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Ice stormsrelatively high in parts of DaytonRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of DaytonRelatively 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 Dayton’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively 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 Middlesex County and the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
Dayton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dayton$662,291
- New Jersey$575,123
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 7 Dayton 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.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Dayton19
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Dayton7
Zip codes with a Dayton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dayton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.