Kingston, Pennsylvania.
Typical home $235,022 (+3.3% in a year), asking rent $1,392 (+7.9%). Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$725 (+143%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,589 +3%
- $227,433$235,022 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $67,351 +40%
- $167,670$235,022 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.
- Kingston$1,234
- Pennsylvania$1,507
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Kingston, PA rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Kingston, PA rose 7.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Kingston runs $378/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $428 in Apr 2025.
That is $1,770 a month against $1,392 rent: a $1,234 mortgage payment, plus $285 property tax and $252 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Kingston
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$1,770
- Renting$1,392
- Mortgage only$1,234
Property tax · $285/mo 1.45% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Luzerne County, PA
Insurance & upkeep · $252/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 Kingston, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Kingston is a borough of 13,349 people in Luzerne County. Half its households earn more than $55,347 a year and half less, against $63,691 across Luzerne County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 52% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 48% are rented. Unemployment in Luzerne County was 5.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% fewer 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. Kingston is a borough in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. It is a place where renters and owners live side by side, with owners living in slightly more of the homes than renters do. Household incomes run below the county's, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line. Winters are cold and snowy, and summers are warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, restaurants and hotels, and transport and warehouses also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Kingston are Wyoming Valley West Schools, Geisinger South Wilkes Barre and Commonwealth Physician Network. Unemployment across Luzerne County has eased compared with a year earlier, though the county has about the same number of jobs as before. Commutes are fairly short, and some people work from home.
Things to do. Toby Creek and Abrahams Creek run in or beside town, giving a bit of waterside ground close to home. A short drive away is Frances Slocum State Park, a protected area for time outdoors. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to Harveys Lake, a reservoir, and Pocono Raceway, a race track.
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- 5,857households
- 32%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Luzerne County had 145,109 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 36° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 63°. About 45 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wilkes-barre International Airport weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kingston
- Wyoming Valley West SDSchool district540FTE
- Geisinger South Wilkes BarreHealthcare526
- Commonwealth Physician NetworkFamily physicians' offices192
- Eden EastNursing homes192
- Third Ave Health and RehabNursing homes60
- AFC IndustriesHardware merchant wholesaler50
- Beaubois USAMillwork, custom architectural, manufacturing50
- A. Pickett Construction, Inc. Pickett Facilities MaintenanceCommercial building construction48
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 12 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,246 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Kingston’s census tracts, 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 Luzerne County and the Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA metro.
Kingston home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Kingston$235,022
- Pennsylvania$287,078
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Kingston listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Kingston36.34%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Kingston23
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Kingston11
Zip codes with a Kingston address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Kingston — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.