Fairlee, Vermont.
Typical home $387,418 (-4.4% in a year). Lebanon, NH-VT metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$905 (+80%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $17,779 -4%
- $405,197$387,418 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $12,227 +3%
- $375,191$387,418 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.
- Fairlee$2,033
- Vermont$2,057
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Fairlee, VT fell 4.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Fairlee, Orange County, Vermont
Fairlee, in Orange County, had 198 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Orange County was 2.4% in August 2026, and the county had 1.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Orange 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Fairlee is a very small Vermont community, among the smallest places a person could choose to live, where neighbors are likely to know one another. Homes here are valued well above what the typical home is worth across much of the country, which is worth knowing for anyone weighing a move. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and freezing days and nights common, and summers are pleasantly warm, with July the warmest, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many people who live here work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, the building trades and manufacturing also employing a good number. Across Orange County, some of the largest workplaces are Vermont State University, Gifford Medical Center and the Oxbow Unified Union School District. Unemployment in the county is low and a little lower than a year ago, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. The Waits River is a short drive away, and so is Thetford Hill State Park, a protected area good for a walk outdoors. Dartmouth Skiway, a ski area, is also a short drive away, which suits the long Vermont winters. For a longer drive, the Hood Museum of Art offers a day among paintings and other works.
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What people in Orange County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Orange County had 7,791 jobs in 2025, 1.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 57°. About 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Union Village Dam weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Orange County
- Vermont State UniversityUniversity or college1,248
- Gifford Medical CenterCritical access hospital310FTE
- Oxbow Unified Union School District #91School district177FTE
- Orange Southwest Unified Union School District #59School district149FTE
- Paine Mountain Union School District #68School district126FTE
- HannafordGrocery stores112
- Blue Mountain Union School District #21School district100FTE
- Shaws SupermarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores87
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,009 people in all across the county; Fairlee 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
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Fairlee’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Orange County and the Lebanon, NH-VT metro.
Fairlee home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Fairlee$387,418
- Vermont$391,900
- 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.
- Fairlee5
Zip codes with a Fairlee address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Fairlee — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.