Linden, New Jersey.
Typical home $547,815 (+2.0% in a year), asking rent $2,468 (+3.4%). New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,755 (+157%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,643 +2%
- $537,172$547,815 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $158,087 +41%
- $389,727$547,815 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.
- Linden$2,875
- New Jersey$3,019
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Linden, NJ rose 2.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Linden, NJ rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Linden runs $1,857/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,861 in Jun 2025.
That is $4,325 a month against $2,468 rent: a $2,875 mortgage payment, plus $863 property tax and $586 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Linden
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$4,325
- Renting$2,468
- Mortgage only$2,875
Property tax · $863/mo 1.89% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Union County, NJ
Insurance & upkeep · $586/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 Linden, Union County, New Jersey
Linden is a city of 43,738 people in Union County. Half its households earn more than $92,915 a year and half less, against $103,202 across Union County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 60% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 40% are rented. Unemployment in Linden was 5.9% in August 2026, and Union County had 1.1% 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. Linden is a city in Union County with a middle-aged population, and more of its homes are lived in by their owners than rented. Household incomes run below the county's, and a typical home here costs less than a typical home in the New York region but still a good deal. Winters are cold and snowy, summers warm, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in transport, warehouses and utilities, and in shops. Among the largest workplaces in Linden are the Linden Public School District, a Phillips 66 refinery and FedEx. Commutes are fairly long, and few people work from home.
Things to do. The closest of the better-known places is Sports Illustrated Stadium, a short drive away. The Statue of Liberty and the Hudson River are both a longer drive away, as is Central Park, a garden in the middle of the city. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is another longer drive, for a day among large museum collections.
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- 15,463households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 32 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Union County had 231,428 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 69°. About 32 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Newark International Airport weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Linden
- Linden Public School DistrictSchool district1,011FTE
- FreshRealm - LindenPrepared meals, perishable, packaged for individual resale708
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters693
- Phillips 66Crude petroleum refineries675
- Emerest Health of New JerseyHome health care agencies400
- FedExCourier and express delivery services274
- Shoprite of LindenGrocery stores249
- Maximum Quality FoodsWarehousing/transportation of food goods240
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 52 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 7,077 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
- Strong windrelatively high in parts of LindenRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Linden’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 Union County and the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
Linden home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Linden$547,815
- New Jersey$575,123
- 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 5 Linden listings, and the typical home goes pending in 26 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.
- Linden18.58%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Linden26
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Linden102
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Linden26
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Linden$540,512
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Linden address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Linden — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.