Foster, Rhode Island.
Typical home $555,456 (+4.1% in a year). Providence-Warwick, RI-MA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,742 (+148%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $21,690 +4%
- $533,766$555,456 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $160,698 +41%
- $394,758$555,456 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.
- Foster$2,915
- Rhode Island$2,669
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Foster, RI rose 4.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Foster, Providence County, Rhode Island
Foster is a town of 4,469 people in Providence County. Half its households earn more than $113,646 a year and half less, against $78,787 across Providence County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 91% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 9% are rented. Unemployment in Providence County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Foster is a small, rural town in Providence County where almost everyone owns the home they live in, and the population is older than in most places. Household incomes run well above the county's, and fewer people live below the poverty line than you might expect for the area. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm without being hot, with plenty of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, restaurants and hotels, and the building trades also employing many. Commutes are on the long side, and a good number of people work from home. Across Providence County, some of the largest workplaces are Rhode Island Hospital, Brown University and Providence Schools.
Things to do. The Moosup River runs in or beside town, and Five Mile River and Old Furnace State Park, a protected natural area, are a short drive away. For a longer outing, Lake Chaubunagungamaug and Pachaug State Forest are both a longer drive away, and Thompson International Speedway offers racing for those willing to travel.
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- 1,503households
- 37%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 33 mintypical commute
- 18%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Providence County had 290,835 jobs in 2025, 0.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 61°. About 62 inches of snow and 54 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the North Foster East weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Providence County
- Rhode Island HospitalGeneral hospital6,658FTE
- Brown UniversityUniversity or college5,496
- Providence SchoolsSchool district3,151FTE
- Gilbane Building Company CorporateConstruction management, commercial and institutional building3,064
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage3,016
- Women & Infants HospitalGeneral hospital2,932FTE
- THE Miriam HospitalGeneral hospital2,614FTE
- Encore Fire ProtectionPlumbing and heating contractors2,543
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 493 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 84,855 people in all across the county; Foster has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Providence County, 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 Providence County and the Providence-Warwick, RI-MA metro.
Foster home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Foster$555,456
- Rhode Island$508,507
- 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.
- Foster14
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Foster6
Zip codes with a Foster address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Foster — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.