Mulberry, Florida.
Typical home $283,634 (-1.2% in a year), asking rent $1,760 (+0.3%). Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$804 (+118%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,400 -1%
- $287,034$283,634 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $44,229 +18%
- $239,405$283,634 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.
- Mulberry$1,489
- Florida$1,970
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Mulberry, FL fell 1.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Mulberry, FL rose 0.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Mulberry runs $203/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $471 in Oct 2022.
That is $1,964 a month against $1,760 rent: a $1,489 mortgage payment, plus $171 property tax and $304 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Mulberry
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$1,964
- Renting$1,760
- Mortgage only$1,489
Property tax · $171/mo 0.73% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Polk County, FL
Insurance & upkeep · $304/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 Mulberry, Polk County, Florida
Mulberry is a city of 3,952 people in Polk County. Half its households earn more than $57,708 a year and half less, against $65,978 across Polk County; 20% of its people live below the poverty line. 79% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 21% are rented. Unemployment in Polk County was 5.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Polk County 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. Mulberry is a small city in Polk County where most homes are lived in by their owners, a larger share than you might expect in a place with this many renters elsewhere in the region. Household incomes run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than is typical. Winters are mild, summers are hot, and the town gets plenty of rain through the year with little or no snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in professional and business services. Walmart and Central Transport International are among the largest workplaces in town. Unemployment across Polk County has edged up a little from a year earlier, though the county has added jobs. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places, and commutes are fairly long, with a good number of people working from home.
Things to do. In or beside town, the Mulberry Phosphate Museum covers the area's mining past. A short drive away are the Florida Air Museum and Christina Lake. A longer drive takes you to Legoland Florida, an amusement park.
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- 1,824households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 19%work from home
What people in Polk County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Polk County had 264,981 jobs in 2025, 1.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 74° and lows near 51°; warmest in August, with highs near 92° and lows near 74°. About 57 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lakeland weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mulberry
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters424
- Central Transport InternationalAll other automotive repair and maintenance78
- MulberryMail and parcel delivery23
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 525 people in all. 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
- Strong windVery high
- LightningVery high
- HurricanesRelatively high
- Wildfirerelatively high in parts of MulberryRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively 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 Mulberry’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Polk County and the Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL metro.
Mulberry home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mulberry$283,634
- Florida$375,361
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Mulberry listings, and the typical home goes pending in 27 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.
- Mulberry34.67%
- 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.
- Mulberry106
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Mulberry28
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Mulberry$284,649
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Mulberry address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mulberry — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.