Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Typical home $767,322 (+2.3% in a year), asking rent $2,678 (+6.0%). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,309 (+134%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,423 +2%
- $749,900$767,322 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $187,038 +32%
- $580,285$767,322 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.
- Gloucester$4,027
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Gloucester, MA rose 2.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Gloucester, MA rose 6.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Gloucester runs $2,836/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,913 in Jun 2025.
That is $5,513 a month against $2,678 rent: a $4,027 mortgage payment, plus $664 property tax and $821 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Gloucester
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$5,513
- Renting$2,678
- Mortgage only$4,027
Property tax · $664/mo 1.04% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Essex County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $821/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 Gloucester, Essex County, Massachusetts
Gloucester is a city of 29,729 people in Essex County. Half its households earn more than $83,883 a year and half less, against $101,883 across Essex County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 64% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 36% are rented. Unemployment in Gloucester was 4.1% in August 2026, and Essex County had 0.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Gloucester is a coastal city on Cape Ann, and its residents are older than in most American places. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though incomes run below the rest of Essex County's, and homes and rents here cost a good deal. Winters are cold and snowy and summers are warm, with rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in shops, and in manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Gloucester are Applied Materials, Gloucester Schools and Gorton's Gloucester, a seafood manufacturer. A good share of adults hold a four-year degree, and unemployment has eased a little compared with a year earlier.
Things to do. Close to home, the Gloucester Fisherman's Memorial is a park in or beside town, and Halibut Point State Park is a protected coastal area a short drive away. For a day in the city, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston is a longer drive away, as is the Freedom Trail.
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- 13,444households
- 40%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Essex County had 326,688 jobs in 2025, 0.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 60°. About 51 inches of snow and 48 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Beverly weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Gloucester
- Applied MaterialsSemiconductor machine manufacturing1,405
- Gloucester SchoolsSchool district515FTE
- Gorton's GloucesterSeafood and seafood products manufacturing420
- Demoulas Super Markets295
- Atlantic Fish & SeafoodSeafood and seafood products manufacturing175
- Addison Gilbert HospitalHospitals, general medical and surgical169
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationFederal government · Department of Commerce157
- Bane CareNursing homes136
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 19 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,382 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Coastal floodingRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Gloucester’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 Essex County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
Gloucester home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gloucester$767,322
- Massachusetts$655,219
- 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 3 Gloucester listings, and the typical home goes pending in 22 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.
- Gloucester29.31%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Gloucester22
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Gloucester91
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Gloucester27
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Gloucester$619,196
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Gloucester address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gloucester — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.