Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Typical home $1,043,923 (+3.1% in a year), asking rent $2,967 (+2.2%). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,997 (+121%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $31,445 +3%
- $1,012,478$1,043,923 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $222,699 +27%
- $821,224$1,043,923 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.
- Marblehead$5,479
- 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 Marblehead, MA rose 3.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Marblehead, MA rose 2.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Marblehead runs $4,534/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $4,730 in Jan 2025.
That is $7,500 a month against $2,967 rent: a $5,479 mortgage payment, plus $904 property tax and $1,118 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Marblehead
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$7,500
- Renting$2,967
- Mortgage only$5,479
Property tax · $904/mo 1.04% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Essex County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $1,118/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 Marblehead, Essex County, Massachusetts
Marblehead, in Essex County, had 20,441 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $182,132 a year and half less, against $101,883 across Essex County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 85% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 15% are rented. Unemployment in Essex County was 4.6% 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 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. Marblehead is a coastal community in Essex County where most homes are lived in by their owners, and where households earn far more than the county's typical household. Residents are older than in many American towns, and very few live below the poverty line. Nearly all adults have a four-year degree, and homes here are valued well above what is typical for the country, with rents to match.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in banks, insurance and property, or in the building trades. The largest workplaces in Marblehead include Marblehead Schools and the Devereux Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Commutes are fairly long, and a good many people work from home.
Things to do. Salem Maritime National Historical Park, a protected area with historic waterfront sites, is a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to Boston, where the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Boston Common are among the best known places to visit. Winters are cold and snowy, with the coldest weather in January, and summers are warm, so outings fit best in the milder months.
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- 8,289households
- 78%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 33 mintypical commute
- 34%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Essex County had 326,688 jobs in 2025, 0.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 36° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 61°. About 39 inches of snow and 48 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Marblehead weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Marblehead
- Marblehead SchoolsSchool district431FTE
- Devereux Skilled Nursing and Rehabiltion CenterSkilled nursing facilities70
- MarbleheadMail and parcel delivery50
- Marblehead Community Charter Public (District)School district25FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 120 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
- Coastal floodingrelatively high in parts of MarbleheadRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Marblehead’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 Essex County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
Marblehead home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Marblehead$1,043,923
- Massachusetts$655,219
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Marblehead listings, and the typical home goes pending in 14 days — the market is heating up.
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.
- Marblehead18.17%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Marblehead52
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Marblehead23
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Marblehead$979,714
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Marblehead address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Marblehead — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.