Passaic, New Jersey.
Typical home $555,039 (+2.1% in a year), asking rent $2,055 (-1.2%). New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,678 (+136%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,231 +2%
- $543,807$555,039 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $136,494 +33%
- $418,545$555,039 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.
- Passaic$2,913
- New Jersey$3,019
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Passaic, NJ rose 2.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Passaic, NJ fell 1.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Passaic runs $2,459/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,467 in May 2025.
That is $4,514 a month against $2,055 rent: a $2,913 mortgage payment, plus $1,007 property tax and $594 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Passaic
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$4,514
- Renting$2,055
- Mortgage only$2,913
Property tax · $1,007/mo 2.18% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Passaic County, NJ
Insurance & upkeep · $594/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 Passaic, Passaic County, New Jersey
Passaic is a city of 70,537 people in Passaic County. Half its households earn more than $55,371 a year and half less, against $87,522 across Passaic County; 23% of its people live below the poverty line. 24% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 76% are rented. Unemployment in Passaic was 5.8% in August 2026, and Passaic County had 2.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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. Passaic is a dense, lively city whose residents are younger than in most places, with many more renters than homeowners and incomes well below the rest of Passaic County's. Homes here are costly to buy and to rent, and a good share of households live with tighter budgets than their neighbors across the county. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, summers turn properly hot by July, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, retail and professional and business services also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Passaic are the Passaic City School District, St. Marys Hospital - Passaic and the Passaic Arts and Science Charter School. Few adults hold a four-year degree compared with many places, most people commute to work, and unemployment has eased compared with a year ago.
Things to do. A short drive away are MetLife Stadium, a stadium for big football games and concerts, and the American Museum of Natural History, a museum of science and the natural world. Central Park, a large garden in the middle of the city, is also a short drive away. For a longer day out, the Statue of Liberty, one of the country's best known tourist attractions, is a longer drive away.
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- 21,151households
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 23%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Passaic County had 174,268 jobs in 2025, 2.0% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 69°. About 46 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Teterboro Airport weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Passaic
- Passaic City School DistrictSchool district2,050FTE
- St. Marys Hospital - PassaicGeneral hospital603FTE
- Passaic Arts and Science Charter SchoolSchool district296FTE
- Lowe's Companies, INC XDT MERCERVILLEDelivery warehouse79
- PassaicMail and parcel delivery68
- QualcoSwimming pool chemical preparations manufacturing41
- Ferguson EnterprisesBoilers merchant wholesalers40
- Abuelito MeatMeat markets27
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 372 people in all. School districts come 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of PassaicRelatively 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 Passaic’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 Passaic County and the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
Passaic home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Passaic$555,039
- New Jersey$575,123
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 9 Passaic listings — 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.
- Passaic10.66%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Passaic46
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Passaic11
Zip codes with a Passaic address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Passaic — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.