Lewes, Delaware.
Typical home $585,288 (+0.5% in a year), asking rent $2,418 (+9.8%). Salisbury, MD-DE metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,547 (+101%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,840 +0%
- $582,448$585,288 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $59,806 +11%
- $525,482$585,288 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.
- Lewes$3,072
- Delaware$2,126
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 32 years.
Typical home values in Lewes, DE rose 0.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Lewes, DE rose 9.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Lewes runs $1,436/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,849 in Oct 2023.
That is $3,854 a month against $2,418 rent: a $3,072 mortgage payment, plus $156 property tax and $627 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Lewes
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$3,854
- Renting$2,418
- Mortgage only$3,072
Property tax · $156/mo 0.32% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Sussex County, DE
Insurance & upkeep · $627/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 Lewes, Sussex County, Delaware
Lewes is a city of 3,303 people in Sussex County. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Sussex County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 2.2% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lewes is a small coastal city whose residents are older than in most American towns, and nearly all of them own the homes they live in. Typical home values are high, and rents are high too, so the town is a place where many people have settled for good rather than passing through. A large majority of adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold but not severe, with only light snow, while summers turn properly hot.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, professional and business services, and banks, insurance and property also employing a good number. The largest workplaces in town include Beebe Medical Center, Beebe Medical Group Establishment and Excelcare at Lewes. A great many people work from home, and the typical trip to work is a moderate one.
Things to do. Cape Henlopen State Park lies in or beside town, and Fort Miles, a fort, and the Zwaanendael Museum are close by too. A short drive away is Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area for walking and watching wildlife. Funland, an amusement park in Rehoboth Beach, is also a short drive away.
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- 1,747households
- 68%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 40%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Sussex County had 96,307 jobs in 2025, 2.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 46° and lows near 30°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 71°. About 10 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lewes weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lewes
- Beebe Medical CenterGeneral hospital2,107FTE
- Beebe Medical Group EstablishmentOffices of physicians550
- Excelcare at LewesNursing homes295
- Armour SteelFoundation, building, poured concrete, contractors35
- Road Site ConstructionSwimming pool, outdoor, construction24
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,837 people in all. Hospitals come 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
- Coastal floodingVery high
- HurricanesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively 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 Lewes’ census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Sussex County and the Salisbury, MD-DE metro.
Lewes home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lewes$585,288
- Delaware$405,061
- 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 Lewes listings, and the typical home goes pending in 59 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.
- Lewes31.43%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Lewes59
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lewes285
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lewes68
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Lewes$586,581
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Lewes97.71%
Zip codes with a Lewes address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lewes — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.