Ellendale, Delaware.
Typical home $351,099 (+1.3% in a year). Salisbury, MD-DE metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,011 (+122%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,349 +1%
- $346,749$351,099 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $55,699 +19%
- $295,400$351,099 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.
- Ellendale$1,843
- Delaware$2,126
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Ellendale, DE rose 1.3% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Living in Ellendale, Sussex County, Delaware
Ellendale is a town of 487 people in Sussex County. 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ellendale is a very small town in Sussex County, Delaware, with far fewer residents than most places people think of as towns. Homes here are valued above what is typical for many parts of the country, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than is common across the nation. Winters are cold, with a little snow, and summers turn hot, with steady rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work 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 Mountaire Farms of Delaware, Beebe Medical Center and the Indian River School District. Unemployment across the county is about where it stood a year ago, and the county has added a few more jobs. The drive to work is on the longer side, and few people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away is Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area for walking and watching wildlife. Silver Lake and Haven Lake are reservoirs, also a short drive off. For a bigger outing, Cape Henlopen State Park is a protected area a longer drive away.
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- 14%of adults have a degree
- 28 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
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 44° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 67°. About 13 inches of snow and 46 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Greenwood 2NE 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; Ellendale 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
- HurricanesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ellendale’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 Sussex County and the Salisbury, MD-DE metro.
Ellendale home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ellendale$351,099
- 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.
- Ellendale7
Zip codes with a Ellendale address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ellendale — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.