Marlborough, Massachusetts.
Typical home $570,533 (+0.2% in a year), asking rent $2,666 (+0.8%). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,571 (+110%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,173 +0%
- $569,361$570,533 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $107,453 +23%
- $463,081$570,533 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.
- Marlborough$2,995
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Marlborough, MA rose 0.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Marlborough, MA rose 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Marlborough runs $1,429/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,545 in Jan 2025.
That is $4,095 a month against $2,666 rent: a $2,995 mortgage payment, plus $490 property tax and $611 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Marlborough
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$4,095
- Renting$2,666
- Mortgage only$2,995
Property tax · $490/mo 1.03% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Middlesex County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $611/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 Marlborough, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Marlborough is a city of 41,793 people in Middlesex County. Half its households earn more than $91,968 a year and half less, against $130,847 across Middlesex County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 56% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 44% are rented. Unemployment in Marlborough was 4.2% 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 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. Marlborough is a city in Middlesex County, home to a few more people than a small town but still compact enough to feel local. Households here earn less than the county's typical household, and most homes are lived in by their owners, with renters making up a good share as well. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings the warmest days, and precipitation falls steadily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with professional and business services, manufacturing and retail also employing large numbers. Among the largest workplaces in Marlborough are BSC, which makes microsurgical instruments, Raytheon's Marlborough site, which makes search and detection systems, and the Marlborough Schools. Commutes are of moderate length, and a fair number of residents work from home.
Things to do. For a day out, Walden Pond is a well-known reservoir for walking and swimming, and the Charles River offers a quieter stretch of water, both a longer drive away. Boston has the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Fenway Park, also a longer drive away, for art and baseball.
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- 16,665households
- 40%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 16%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 37° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 60°. About 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Maynard weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Marlborough
- BSCInstruments, mechanical microsurgical, manufacturing9,812
- Raytheon - MarlboroughSearch and detection systems and instruments manufacturing2,098
- BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc.Warehouse club and supercenters867
- Marlborough SchoolsSchool district747FTE
- AB SciexMass spectrometers manufacturing589
- Ken's FoodsSalad dressings manufacturing542
- Hologic Marlborough CampusCorporate services and filter manufacturing515
- DuPont Electronic Materials InternationalWater, distilled, manufacturing466
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 59 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 19,726 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Marlborough’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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.
Marlborough home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Marlborough$570,533
- Massachusetts$655,219
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Marlborough listings, and the typical home goes pending in 17 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.
- Marlborough28.38%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Marlborough17
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Marlborough79
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Marlborough32
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Marlborough$558,528
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Marlborough100.72%
Zip codes with a Marlborough address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Marlborough — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.