Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
Typical home $261,853 (+5.6% in a year), asking rent $1,165 (+8.8%). Bloomsburg-Berwick, PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$642 (+88%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,948 +6%
- $247,905$261,853 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $30,676 +13%
- $231,177$261,853 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.
- Bloomsburg$1,374
- Pennsylvania$1,507
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 28 years.
Typical home values in Bloomsburg, PA rose 5.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Bloomsburg, PA rose 8.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Bloomsburg runs $732/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $825 in Feb 2024.
That is $1,897 a month against $1,165 rent: a $1,374 mortgage payment, plus $242 property tax and $280 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Bloomsburg
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$1,897
- Renting$1,165
- Mortgage only$1,374
Property tax · $242/mo 1.11% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Columbia County, PA
Insurance & upkeep · $280/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 Bloomsburg, Columbia County, Pennsylvania
Bloomsburg is a town of 12,711 people in Columbia County. Half its households earn more than $51,536 a year and half less, against $64,644 across Columbia County; 26% of its people live below the poverty line. 35% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 65% are rented. Unemployment in Columbia County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% 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. Bloomsburg is a small town with a very young population, a good deal younger than most places, which fits its role as a college town. Incomes run below the county's, and the share of households living in poverty is high. Most homes are rented rather than lived in by their owners, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than you might expect for a college town. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and snow comes regularly, while July brings warm days. Rain and melted snow add up to a fairly wet year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, then restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in town are Geisinger Bloomsburg Hospital, Bloomsburg Area Schools and Autoneum Bloomsburg. Across Columbia County, unemployment has eased over the past year, though the number of jobs slipped a little over the latest year on record. Commutes are short, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. The Children's Museum and Wyoming State Forest are both in or beside town, so a museum visit or a walk in the woods needs no real travel. A short drive away is Knoebels Amusement Resort, an amusement park and one of the best known places in the area. Jakey Hollow Natural Area, also a short drive away, is a protected area for quieter time outdoors.
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- 4,584households
- 32%of adults have a degree
- 26%below the poverty line
- 15 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Columbia County had 24,066 jobs in 2025, 1.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 61°. About 34 inches of snow and 48 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Bear Gap weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bloomsburg
- Autoneum BloomsburgAutomobile trimmings, textile, manufacturing308
- Geisinger Bloomsburg HospitalGeneral hospital301FTE
- Bloomsburg Area SDSchool district213FTE
- Weis MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery158
- Milco IndustriesFabrics, knit, made in warp or weft knit fabric mills65
- Community Options ColumbiaResidential intellectual and developmental disability facilities57
- BloomsburgMail and parcel delivery40
- Ultra-PolyTrash containers, plastics, manufacturing25
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 9 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,109 people in all. 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
- LightningRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bloomsburg’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Columbia County and the Bloomsburg-Berwick, PA metro.
Bloomsburg home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bloomsburg$261,853
- Pennsylvania$287,078
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Bloomsburg listings, and the typical home goes pending in 15 days — 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.
- Bloomsburg30.99%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Bloomsburg15
- United States21
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bloomsburg52
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Bloomsburg19
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Bloomsburg$268,158
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Bloomsburg address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bloomsburg — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.