Elsmere, Delaware.
Typical home $236,500 (+0.4% in a year). Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$687 (+124%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $986 +0%
- $235,514$236,500 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $59,611 +34%
- $176,889$236,500 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.
- Elsmere$1,241
- Delaware$2,126
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Elsmere, DE rose 0.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Elsmere, New Castle County, Delaware
Elsmere is a town of 6,229 people in New Castle County. 66% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 34% are rented. Unemployment in New Castle County was 4.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Elsmere is a small town in New Castle County, Delaware, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Typical home values here are lower than in many parts of the country, and a larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is usual. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and some snow each year, while summers turn warm, with July the warmest, and rain or melted snow falls fairly steadily across the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in Elsmere are Dewson Construction Company, a residential builder, the Wawa convenience store, and Building Systems & Services, an HVAC contractor. A four-year degree is held by fewer adults here than is typical, and the usual commute is a moderate drive, with some people working from home.
Things to do. The Delaware Art Museum is in or beside town. A short drive away are Fort Christina, the Christina River, and Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, a botanical garden. The Delaware River is a longer drive away.
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- 2,238households
- 15%of adults have a degree
- 23%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. New Castle County had 306,171 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 67°. About 12 inches of snow and 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wilmington Porter Rsch weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Elsmere
- Dewson Construction CompanyResidential construction, single-family, general contractors42
- Wawa SiteConvenience store39
- Building Systems & ServicesHvac contractors33
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 114 people in all. 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 floodingVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Elsmere’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 New Castle County and the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro.
Elsmere home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Elsmere$236,500
- 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.
- Elsmere11
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Elsmere6
Zip codes with a Elsmere address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Elsmere — 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.