Lorraine, New York.
Typical home $165,469 (+3.5% in a year). Watertown-Fort Drum, NY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$39 (+5%) since Nov 2023.
- 1 year
- Up $5,604 +4%
- $159,865$165,469 since Sep 2025
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.
- Lorraine$869
- New York$2,755
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Lorraine, NY rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Lorraine, Jefferson County, New York
Lorraine, in Jefferson County, had 139 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Jefferson County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Jefferson County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lorraine is a very small rural community in Jefferson County, with far fewer residents than most towns and the quiet that comes with that. Homes here cost less than in much of the country, and household incomes across the county sit below the national picture. Winters are long and cold, with a great deal of snow, and summers are comfortably warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants and hotels, and in government. The commute is a little longer than a quick hop across town, which is typical of rural areas where jobs are spread out. Across Jefferson County, the largest workplaces include Samaritan Medical Center, the Indian River Central School District and the Carthage Central School District.
Things to do. Crystal Lake is a lake a short drive away, and Winona State Forest is a protected area close by as well. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to Thompson Park, a park, and to the Black River, a river good for time on the water. With so much snow each winter, the surrounding forests and lakes change a great deal from season to season.
Report a mistake
- 28 mintypical commute
What people in Jefferson County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Jefferson County had 40,563 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 11°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 62°. About 116 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Watertown weather station, 15 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Jefferson County
- Samaritan Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,581FTE
- Indian River Central School DistrictSchool district770FTE
- Carthage Central School DistrictSchool district679FTE
- The Arc Jefferson-St LawrenceGroup homes, intellectual and developmental disability678
- Watertown City School DistrictSchool district637FTE
- Car-freshnerAirfreshners manufacturing490
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters381
- Carthage Area HospitalCritical access hospital367FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 75 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 9,661 people in all across the county; Lorraine has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lorraine’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 Jefferson County and the Watertown-Fort Drum, NY metro.
Lorraine home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lorraine$165,469
- New York$524,942
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lorraine5
Zip codes with a Lorraine address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lorraine — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.