Lawrence, Indiana.
Typical home $266,750 (+0.2% in a year), asking rent $1,540 (+4.1%). Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, IN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$767 (+121%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $429 +0%
- $266,321$266,750 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $47,464 +22%
- $219,286$266,750 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.
- Lawrence$1,400
- Indiana$1,350
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Lawrence, IN rose 0.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Lawrence, IN rose 4.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Lawrence runs $347/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $493 in Oct 2023.
That is $1,887 a month against $1,540 rent: a $1,400 mortgage payment, plus $201 property tax and $286 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Lawrence
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$1,887
- Renting$1,540
- Mortgage only$1,400
Property tax · $201/mo 0.91% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Marion County, IN
Insurance & upkeep · $286/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 Lawrence, Marion County, Indiana
Lawrence is a city of 49,370 people in Marion County. Half its households earn more than $74,022 a year and half less, against $66,346 across Marion County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 66% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 34% are rented. Unemployment in Lawrence was 3.4% in August 2026, and Marion 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. Lawrence is a city on the northeast side of Indianapolis, in Marion County. Residents are younger than in much of the country, and household incomes run above the county's. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and a four-year degree is held by a fair share of adults. Winters are cold, with January highs near freezing and lows well below it, and summers are warm, with a good deal of snow and rain through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, professional and business services, and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in town are MSD Lawrence Township Schools, PurposeCare and First Student. Unemployment is low and a little lower than a year ago, though across Marion County the number of jobs slipped slightly last year. A typical commute is a fairly long one by local standards, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. Fort Harrison State Park, a protected area in or beside town, is the closest place to get outdoors. A short drive away are The Children's Museum of Indianapolis and the Broad Ripple Park Carousel, a tourist attraction. For a bigger outing, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the race track, is a longer drive away.
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- 19,579households
- 36%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Marion County had 625,109 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 65°. About 27 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Castleton South weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lawrence
- MSD Lawrence TownshipSchool district1,662FTE
- PurposeCareHome health care agencies1,498
- First Student550
- MSDLT- Food Service/CafeSchool districts, elementary or secondary380
- WCA GroupHeating, ventilation and air-conditioning contractors347
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters338
- Freije Engineered SOLProcess piping installation194
- Options Behavioral Health SystemPsychiatric hospital152FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 45 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,804 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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 moderate
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of LawrenceRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively 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 Lawrence’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 Marion County and the Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, IN metro.
Lawrence home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lawrence$266,750
- Indiana$257,165
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Lawrence listings, and the typical home goes pending in 33 days — 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.
- Lawrence40.00%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Lawrence33
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lawrence133
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lawrence41
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Lawrence$267,920
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Lawrence98.78%
Zip codes with a Lawrence address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lawrence — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Lawrence
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46236 | Indianapolis | 26,416 | $1,906 | $326,867 |
| 46216 | Indianapolis | 2,767 | $1,491 | $306,109 |