Orwell, Vermont.
Typical home $384,752 (+2.0% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$929 (+85%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,471 +2%
- $377,282$384,752 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $39,956 +12%
- $344,797$384,752 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.
- Orwell$2,019
- Vermont$2,057
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 32 years.
Typical home values in Orwell, VT rose 2.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Orwell, Addison County, Vermont
Orwell is a town of 1,239 people in Addison County. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Addison County was 2.3% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Addison 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Orwell is a small Vermont town in Addison County, and most of its homes are lived in by their owners. A fair share of residents live below the poverty line, and a four-year degree is held by fewer adults than you might expect in a county with a college in it. Winters are cold, with a good deal of snow, and summers are warm, with rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in shops, manufacturing and the building trades. Across Addison County, some of the largest workplaces are Middlebury College, Porter Hospital and the Addison Central Unified Union School District. Commutes are fairly long, and a modest share of people work from home.
Things to do. History is close at hand: Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, an archaeological site, are each a short drive away. For time on the water, the Lemon Fair River runs in or beside town, and Lake George is a longer drive away.
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- 519households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What people in Addison County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Addison County had 15,570 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 27° and lows near 9°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 60°. About 59 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cornwall weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Addison County
- Middlebury CollegeUniversity or college1,244
- Simmonds Precision ProductsFuel system instruments, aircraft, manufacturing679
- Porter HospitalCritical access hospital467FTE
- Addison Central Unified Union School District #55School district304FTE
- Counseling Service of Addison CountyCounseling services270
- Mt. Abraham Unified School District #61School district236FTE
- Addison Northwest Unified Union School District #54School district198FTE
- Agri-MarkCheese, natural, manufacturing125
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 18 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,925 people in all across the county; Orwell has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals 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
FEMA rates every natural hazard here relatively low or very low.
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Addison County, 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 Addison County.
Orwell home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Orwell$384,752
- Vermont$391,900
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Orwell7
Zip codes with a Orwell address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Orwell — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.