Luzerne, Pennsylvania.
Typical home $184,946 (-2.0% in a year). Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$575 (+145%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,711 -2%
- $188,657$184,946 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $48,461 +36%
- $136,484$184,946 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.
- Luzerne$971
- Pennsylvania$1,507
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Luzerne, PA fell 2.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Luzerne, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Luzerne is a borough of 2,711 people in Luzerne County. 59% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 41% are rented. Unemployment in Luzerne County was 5.2% in August 2026, and the 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Luzerne is a small borough in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and a compact place where people tend to live in homes they own. Incomes run below the county's, and a good share of households live below the poverty line. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many parts of the country, and home values are modest. Winters are cold and snowy, with January highs near freezing and lows well below it, while summers are warm, and precipitation is steady through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, and in government. Across Luzerne County, the largest workplaces include Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center, Amazon and the Hazleton Area Schools. Unemployment across the county has eased compared with a year ago, though the number of jobs has barely moved. Most people have a commute shorter than the national norm, and a share of them work from home.
Things to do. Several small creeks run in or beside town, including Toby Creek and Huntsville Creek, which suit a quiet walk along the water. A short drive away are Frances Slocum State Park, a protected area, and Harveys Lake, a reservoir. A longer drive brings you to Steamtown National Historic Site, a protected area devoted to railroad history, and to Pocono Raceway, a race track.
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- 1,399households
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Luzerne County had 145,109 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 63°. About 45 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wilkes-barre International Airport weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Luzerne County
- Geisinger Wyoming Valley MED CTRGeneral hospital2,715FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage2,610
- NBC Pittston MerchantsBonded warehousing, general merchandise1,456
- Hazleton Area SDSchool district1,353FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs1,315
- ChewyGeneral warehousing and storage1,134
- ChewyGeneral warehousing and storage1,122
- Benco DentalDental equipment and supplies merchant wholesalers1,089
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 338 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 52,411 people in all across the county; Luzerne has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Luzerne’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 Luzerne County and the Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA metro.
Luzerne home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Luzerne$184,946
- Pennsylvania$287,078
- 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.
- Luzerne6
Zip codes with a Luzerne address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Luzerne — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.