Madison, New Jersey.
Typical home $1,018,993 (+8.2% in a year), asking rent $3,423 (+2.4%). New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,912 (+119%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $77,027 +8%
- $941,966$1,018,993 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $283,219 +38%
- $735,774$1,018,993 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.
- Madison$5,348
- New Jersey$3,019
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Madison, NJ rose 8.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Madison, NJ rose 2.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Madison runs $4,474/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $7,897 a month against $3,423 rent: a $5,348 mortgage payment, plus $1,458 property tax and $1,091 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Madison
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$7,897
- Renting$3,423
- Mortgage only$5,348
Property tax · $1,458/mo 1.72% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Morris County, NJ
Insurance & upkeep · $1,091/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 Madison, Morris County, New Jersey
Madison is a borough of 16,937 people in Morris County. Half its households earn more than $171,471 a year and half less, against $137,326 across Morris County; 3% of its people live below the poverty line. 64% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 36% are rented. Unemployment in Morris County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then finance and property.
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. Madison is a borough in Morris County, home to a population that is a little younger than the typical American town's and well educated, with a large majority of adults holding a four-year degree. Household incomes run well above the county's, and relatively few people live below the poverty line. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though there are more renters than you might expect in a place with homes this costly, and both home values and rents are high. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs near freezing, and summers are warm, with July the hottest. The town gets a fair amount of snow and a good deal of rain across the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with banks, insurance and property, professional and business services, and shops also employing plenty of people. Some of the biggest workplaces in Madison itself are Drew University, the Madison Public School District and Super Stop & Shop. Commutes are fairly long, and more people than in many places work from home. Across Morris County, unemployment is lower than a year ago and jobs have grown slightly.
Things to do. Closest to home, Drew University has a botanical garden in or beside town. For a longer drive, the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty, a well-known tourist attraction, are within reach. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the best-known museums in the country and is also a longer drive away.
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- 5,614households
- 74%of adults have a degree
- 3%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 28%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Morris County had 301,376 jobs in 2025, 0.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 66°. About 24 inches of snow and 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Canoe Brook weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Madison
- Drew UniversityUniversity or college472
- Madison Public School DistrictSchool district425FTE
- Rose City226
- Super Stop & ShopGrocery stores132
- Sunrise Senior Living, LLC.Assisted living67
- Innovative Facility ServicesJanitorial services66
- MB HealthcareSkilled nursing facilities65
- Madison Carrier AnnexMail and parcel delivery31
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 587 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) 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 moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively 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 Madison’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 Morris County and the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
Madison home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Madison$1,018,993
- 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 Madison listings — 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.
- Madison18.31%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Madison19
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Madison11
Zip codes with a Madison address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Madison — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.