Dover, Delaware.
Typical home $342,473 (+1.9% in a year), asking rent $1,702 (+4.5%). Dover, DE metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,006 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,271 +2%
- $336,203$342,473 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $79,847 +30%
- $262,627$342,473 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.
- Dover$1,798
- Delaware$2,126
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Dover, DE rose 1.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Dover, DE rose 4.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Dover runs $585/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $657 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,287 a month against $1,702 rent: a $1,798 mortgage payment, plus $123 property tax and $367 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Dover
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$2,287
- Renting$1,702
- Mortgage only$1,798
Property tax · $123/mo 0.43% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Kent County, DE
Insurance & upkeep · $367/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 Dover, Kent County, Delaware
Dover is a city of 39,403 people in Kent County. Half its households earn more than $60,199 a year and half less, against $74,477 across Kent County; 15% of its people live below the poverty line. 47% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 53% are rented. Unemployment in Dover was 6.6% in August 2026, and Kent 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. Dover is the capital of Delaware and a mid-sized city, so the state's government and the city's daily life share the same streets. Residents are younger than in much of the country, and incomes run below the county's. More households here rent than across most of the country, and a four-year degree is held by a smaller share of adults than many places can count. Winters are cold and summers warm, with some snow and a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, restaurants and hotels, and professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Dover are Bayhealth Hospital Kent Campus, Delaware State University and the Capital School District. The job market has been soft, with Kent County adding no new jobs last year, though unemployment in the city has eased compared with a year earlier. Most people have a fairly short commute, and only a small number work from home.
Things to do. Dover Motor Speedway, a race track, sits in or beside town, as does Silver Lake, a reservoir for a quiet walk by the water. A short drive away is Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area of marsh and open land. The Air Mobility Command Museum is also a short drive away, and the Delaware River is a longer drive.
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- 15,428households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 9%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, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Dover
- Bayhealth Hospital Kent CampusGeneral hospital1,745FTE
- Delaware State UniversityUniversity or college1,029
- Capital School DistrictSchool district834FTE
- Kraft Heinz Dover DelawarePrepared meals, perishable, packaged for individual resale628
- Edgewell Personal CareSanitary paper product manufacturing485
- BAYADA Home Health CareHome health care299
- Help at Home of DelawareHomemaker's service for elderly or disabled persons, non-medical297
- Procter & Gamble Dover Wipes CompanyWipes, nonwoven fabric, manufacturing283
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 38 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,957 people in all. 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 high in parts of DoverRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of DoverRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Dover’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 Kent County and the Dover, DE metro.
Dover home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dover$342,473
- Delaware$405,061
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Dover listings, and the typical home goes pending in 16 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.
- Dover29.06%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Dover16
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Dover218
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Dover76
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Dover$323,215
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Dover99.45%
Zip codes with a Dover address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dover — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Dover
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19904 | Dover | 38,818 | $1,674 | $344,867 |
| 19901 | Dover | 37,763 | $1,749 | $333,137 |