Odessa, Delaware.
Typical home $399,625 (+8.5% in a year). Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,178 (+128%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $31,183 +8%
- $368,443$399,625 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $103,201 +35%
- $296,424$399,625 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.
- Odessa$2,098
- Delaware$2,126
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Odessa, DE rose 8.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Odessa, New Castle County, Delaware
Odessa is a town of 366 people in New Castle County. Unemployment in New Castle County was 4.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in New Castle County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Odessa is a very small town, one of the smaller places in New Castle County, and it has the quiet feel that goes with that. Homes here are valued above what is typical across much of the country, and very few residents live below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with January the chilliest month and a fair amount of snow, while July brings hot summer days and the year is wet enough to keep things green.
Work. Residents of Odessa work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, banks, insurance and property, and shops. The usual commute is a long one, so many people travel some distance to their jobs. Across New Castle County, the largest workplaces include the University of Delaware, the Christina School District and Amazon's warehouses, and the county has added jobs over the past year even as unemployment has eased from where it stood a year earlier.
Things to do. For time outdoors, the Delaware River and Alloway Creek are both a short drive away, as is Blackbird State Forest, a protected area good for a walk. A longer drive brings you to Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, a botanical garden, and to the Delaware Art Museum. Those with an interest in history can also reach Fort Delaware and Fort Christina.
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- 2%below the poverty line
- 32 mintypical commute
What people in New Castle County 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 41° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 68°. About 20 inches of snow and 45 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wilmington New Castle County Airport weather station, 15 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in New Castle County
- 50 ChristianaGeneral medical and surgical hospitals11,886
- University of DelawareUniversity or college5,081
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage4,363
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage2,902
- Hatzel & Buehler, Inc. - STEElectrical contractors2,245
- Christina School DistrictSchool district2,219FTE
- Alfred I Dupont Hosp for ChildrenChildren's hospital2,142FTE
- Red Clay Consolidated School DistrictSchool district2,116FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 443 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 72,630 people in all across the county; Odessa has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Odessa’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 New Castle County and the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro.
Odessa home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Odessa$399,625
- Delaware$405,061
- United States$366,157
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.
Zip codes with a Odessa address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Odessa — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.