Middletown, Delaware.
Typical home $533,640 (+1.7% in a year), asking rent $2,705 (+3.5%). Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,531 (+121%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,937 +2%
- $524,703$533,640 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $105,651 +25%
- $427,990$533,640 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.
- Middletown$2,801
- Delaware$2,126
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Middletown, DE rose 1.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Middletown, DE rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Middletown runs $983/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,072 in Apr 2024.
That is $3,688 a month against $2,705 rent: a $2,801 mortgage payment, plus $316 property tax and $571 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Middletown
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$3,688
- Renting$2,705
- Mortgage only$2,801
Property tax · $316/mo 0.71% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for New Castle County, DE
Insurance & upkeep · $571/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 Middletown, New Castle County, Delaware
Middletown is a town of 23,192 people in New Castle County. Half its households earn more than $112,831 a year and half less, against $91,166 across New Castle County; 8% of its people live below the poverty line. 77% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in Middletown was 4.8% in August 2026, and New Castle County had 0.8% more 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. Middletown is a town in New Castle County where most homes are lived in by their owners, and household incomes run above the county's. The population is middle-aged, and more adults hold a four-year degree than many towns of its kind would. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn hot by July. Rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, banks and insurance, and professional and business services close behind. Among the largest workplaces in town are Walmart, Clarios and Lowe's. The typical commute is a fairly long one, and a fair number of people work from home.
Things to do. Blackbird State Forest is a protected woodland a short drive away, and Barlow Branch, a small river, is nearby as well. For a longer drive, Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is a botanical garden, and the Delaware Art Museum offers indoor browsing when the weather turns cold.
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- 9,013households
- 44%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 19%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. New Castle County had 306,171 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 66°. About 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Newark Ag Farm weather station, 16 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Middletown
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters396
- Clarios - MiddletownStorage battery manufacturing352
- Breakthru Beverage DelawareAlcoholic beverages, wine and distilled spirits merchant wholesalers294
- MativTube, nonrigid plastics, manufacturing178
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter143
- MOT Charter SchoolSchool district137FTE
- GiantGrocery stores104
- Food LionGrocery stores91
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 18 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,134 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Middletown’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 New Castle County and the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro.
Middletown home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Middletown$533,640
- Delaware$405,061
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Middletown listings, and the typical home goes pending in 26 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.
- Middletown31.47%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Middletown26
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Middletown162
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Middletown49
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Middletown$476,008
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Middletown95.63%
Zip codes with a Middletown address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Middletown — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.