Dewey Beach, Delaware.
Typical home $1,190,094 (+12.8% in a year). Salisbury, MD-DE metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$3,206 (+105%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $134,641 +13%
- $1,055,454$1,190,094 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $26,740 -2%
- $1,216,835$1,190,094 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.
- Dewey Beach$6,247
- Delaware$2,126
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Dewey Beach, DE rose 12.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Dewey Beach, Sussex County, Delaware
Dewey Beach is a town of 353 people in Sussex County. 88% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 12% are rented. Unemployment in Sussex County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 2.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Sussex County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Dewey Beach is a small seaside town in Sussex County, Delaware, with a year-round population that is older than in most places and a very large share of adults who hold a four-year degree. Nearly everyone who lives here owns their home, and typical home values are far higher than across most of the country. Winters are cold, with a little snow, and summers are warm; rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Residents of the town work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, and in the building trades. Across Sussex County, the largest workplaces include Beebe Medical Center, the Indian River School District and Mountaire Farms of Delaware, a poultry processor. Unemployment across the county is a little lower than a year ago, and the county has added jobs over the past year.
Things to do. Cape Henlopen State Park, a protected area of shore and woodland, is a short drive away, as are Delaware Seashore State Park and Fort Miles, a fort. In or beside town there is Funland, an amusement park in nearby Rehoboth Beach, and Silver Lake, a lake that suits a quiet walk.
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- 188households
- 71%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
What people in Sussex County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Sussex County had 96,307 jobs in 2025, 2.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 46° and lows near 30°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 71°. About 10 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lewes weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sussex County
- Mountaire Farms of DelawarePoultry slaughtering, dressing, and packing2,631
- Beebe Medical CenterGeneral hospital2,107FTE
- Mountaire FarmsPoultry slaughtering, dressing, and packing2,090
- Allen HarimPoultry slaughtering, dressing, and packing2,081
- Indian River School DistrictSchool district1,492FTE
- Perdue FoodsPoultry processing1,267
- Cape Henlopen School DistrictSchool district1,156FTE
- Bayhealth Hospital Sussex CampusGeneral hospital861FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 165 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 25,437 people in all across the county; Dewey Beach has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- Coastal floodingVery high
- HurricanesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively 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 Dewey Beach’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 Sussex County and the Salisbury, MD-DE metro.
Dewey Beach home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dewey Beach$1,190,094
- 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.
- Dewey Beach10
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Dewey Beach address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dewey Beach — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.