Emmaus, Pennsylvania.
Typical home $389,005 (+3.6% in a year), asking rent $1,898 (+1.6%). Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,141 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,455 +4%
- $375,550$389,005 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $91,056 +31%
- $297,949$389,005 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.
- Emmaus$2,042
- Pennsylvania$1,507
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Emmaus, PA rose 3.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Emmaus, PA rose 1.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Emmaus runs $1,062/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $2,960 a month against $1,898 rent: a $2,042 mortgage payment, plus $502 property tax and $416 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Emmaus
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$2,960
- Renting$1,898
- Mortgage only$2,042
Property tax · $502/mo 1.55% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lehigh County, PA
Insurance & upkeep · $416/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 Emmaus, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
Emmaus is a borough of 11,652 people in Lehigh County. Half its households earn more than $83,917 a year and half less, against $80,079 across Lehigh County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 64% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 36% are rented. Unemployment in Lehigh County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 1.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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. Emmaus is a borough in Lehigh County, home to a modest-sized community of residents. Household incomes run somewhat above the county's, and fewer residents live below the poverty line than in many places. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though renting is common enough, and a four-year degree is held by a sizable group of adults. Winters are cold, with a fair amount of snow, and summers turn warm, with plenty of rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, retail and professional and business services also employing many. Among the largest workplaces in Emmaus are Cintas, an industrial laundry, Weis Markets, a supermarket, and Air Products and Chemicals' Emmaus Gardner facility. The typical commute is moderate, and a good number of people work from home. Unemployment across Lehigh County is lower than a year ago, and the county has added jobs.
Things to do. Saucon Creek runs in or beside town, a quiet spot for a walk along the water. A short drive away is Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, an amusement park, and the Allentown Art Museum offers a calmer day out. The Lehigh River is a longer drive away for those who like to be near a larger river.
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- 5,038households
- 32%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lehigh County had 203,946 jobs in 2025, 1.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 65°. About 33 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Allentown International Airport weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Emmaus
- CintasIndustrial launderers205
- Pratt (Impress Manufacturing)Corrugated paper made from purchased paper or paperboard132
- Weis MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery108
- Seven Generations CS SchoolsSchool district65FTE
- Burkholder's Heating and Air ConditioningHvac contractors62
- Air Products and Chemicals Inc.- Emmaus Gardner FacilityPipe, fabricated metal plate, manufacturing49
- Asphalt Maintenance SolutionsOil field road construction47
- Knight Material TechnologiesTank lining contractors35
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 9 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 686 people in all. School districts come 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Emmaus’ 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 Lehigh County and the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metro.
Emmaus home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Emmaus$389,005
- Pennsylvania$287,078
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Emmaus listings, and the typical home goes pending in 8 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Emmaus28.02%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Emmaus8
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Emmaus53
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Emmaus26
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Emmaus$381,583
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Emmaus102.11%
Zip codes with a Emmaus address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Emmaus — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.