Dryden, New York.
. Ithaca, NY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,478 (+116%) since Jan 2020.
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.
- New York$2,755
- United States$1,922
Living in Dryden, Tompkins County, New York
Dryden is a village of 1,887 people in Tompkins County. Half its households earn more than $50,435 a year and half less, against $74,024 across Tompkins County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 53% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 47% are rented. Unemployment in Tompkins County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Dryden is a small village where incomes run well below the county's, and somewhat fewer homes are lived in by their owners than you might expect for a place this size. A fairly high share of adults hold a four-year degree, and a good number of residents work from home. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers are mild and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents find work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, and in banking, insurance and property. Across Tompkins County, the largest workplaces include Cornell University, Cayuga Medical Center at Ithaca and Ithaca College. Unemployment in the county is about where it stood a year ago, and the county has slightly fewer jobs than the year before.
Things to do. Dryden Lake sits in or beside town, and Mud Creek runs close by as well. A short drive away is the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, and a longer drive leads to Cayuga Lake and to Buttermilk Falls State Park, a protected area for walking and being outdoors.
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- 912households
- 48%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 21%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Tompkins County had 47,711 jobs in 2025, 0.7% fewer 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, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Tompkins County
- Cornell UniversityUniversity or college12,363
- Cayuga Medical Center at IthacaGeneral hospital1,512FTE
- Ithaca CollegeUniversity or college1,344
- Ithaca City School DistrictSchool district1,070FTE
- Borgwarner IthacaTiming gears and chains, automotive and truck gasoline engine, manufacturing900
- Wegmans Food MarketsRetail supermarkets515
- Tompkins Cortland Community CollegeTwo-year college357
- Dryden Central School DistrictSchool district313FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 54 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,504 people in all across the county; Dryden has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals 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
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Dryden’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 Tompkins County and the Ithaca, NY metro.
Dryden home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Dryden14
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Dryden5
Zip codes with a Dryden address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dryden — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.