Lowell, Massachusetts.
Typical home $481,510 (+1.1% in a year), asking rent $2,252 (+1.7%). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,417 (+128%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,184 +1%
- $476,325$481,510 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $104,175 +28%
- $377,334$481,510 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.
- Lowell$2,527
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Lowell, MA rose 1.1% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Asking rents in Lowell, MA rose 1.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Lowell runs $1,205/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,322 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,456 a month against $2,252 rent: a $2,527 mortgage payment, plus $414 property tax and $515 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Lowell
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$3,456
- Renting$2,252
- Mortgage only$2,527
Property tax · $414/mo 1.03% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Middlesex County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $515/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 Lowell, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Lowell is a city of 115,554 people in Middlesex County. Half its households earn more than $78,658 a year and half less, against $130,847 across Middlesex County; 17% of its people live below the poverty line. 43% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 57% are rented. Unemployment in Lowell was 5.2% in August 2026, and Middlesex County had 2.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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. Lowell is a city on the Merrimack River in Middlesex County, and one of the larger cities in Massachusetts. Residents tend to be younger than in much of the state, and most households rent their homes rather than own them. Incomes run well below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than you might expect given the county's overall wealth. Winters are cold, with January highs just above freezing, and summers turn warm in July, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, manufacturing, professional and business services, and shops. Among the largest workplaces in Lowell are Lowell General Hospital, Lowell Schools and the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Unemployment is a little lower than a year ago, though across Middlesex County there were slightly fewer jobs last year than the year before, and the typical commute is a moderate one.
Things to do. Lowell National Historical Park lies in or beside town and is the closest place to visit, protecting the city's industrial past. A longer drive brings you to Boston Common, a garden and public park in the heart of Boston, and to Walden Pond, a reservoir known to many readers. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, a major art museum, is also a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 43,183households
- 30%of adults have a degree
- 17%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Middlesex County had 903,942 jobs in 2025, 2.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 61°. About 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lowell weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lowell
- Lowell General HospitalGeneral hospital2,466FTE
- Lowell SchoolsSchool district2,363FTE
- University of Massachusetts-LowellUniversity or college2,162
- Macom Technology SolutionsDiodes, solid-state, manufacturing638
- Lowell General Hospital Saints CampusHospitals, general medical and surgical556
- Demoulas Super Markets409
- Demoulas Super Markets349
- Care ONE at LowellNursing care facilities304
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 32 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 9,204 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lowell’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 Middlesex County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
Lowell home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lowell$481,510
- Massachusetts$655,219
- 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 4 Lowell listings, and the typical home goes pending in 19 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.
- Lowell25.31%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Lowell19
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lowell174
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lowell72
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Lowell$443,378
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Lowell101.65%
Zip codes with a Lowell address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lowell — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Lowell
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01852 | Lowell | 37,144 | $2,179 | $469,900 |
| 01851 | Lowell | 33,403 | $2,361 | $520,042 |
| 01854 | Lowell | 30,081 | $2,219 | $476,823 |
| 01850 | Lowell | 17,740 | $2,197 | $443,468 |