Princeton, New Jersey.
Typical home $954,354 (+3.3% in a year), asking rent $3,350 (+3.7%). Trenton-Princeton, NJ metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,716 (+118%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $30,748 +3%
- $923,606$954,354 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $254,870 +36%
- $699,485$954,354 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.
- Princeton$5,009
- New Jersey$3,019
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Princeton, NJ rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Princeton, NJ rose 3.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Princeton runs $4,557/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $7,907 a month against $3,350 rent: a $5,009 mortgage payment, plus $1,876 property tax and $1,022 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Princeton
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$7,907
- Renting$3,350
- Mortgage only$5,009
Property tax · $1,876/mo 2.36% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Mercer County, NJ
Insurance & upkeep · $1,022/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 Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey
Princeton, in Mercer County, had 30,681 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $192,079 a year and half less, against $100,645 across Mercer County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 55% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 45% are rented. Unemployment in Princeton was 3.3% in August 2026, and Mercer County had 1.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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. Princeton is a small university town where residents are young on the whole, and an unusually large number hold a four-year degree or more. Incomes run well above the county's, though homes and rents are costly, and fewer households own their homes than in many towns of this kind. Winters are cold, with snow most years, and summers turn quite hot, with a good deal of rain across the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, or in banking, insurance and property. Among the largest workplaces in town are the Princeton Public School District, Princeton Theological Seminary and McCarter Theatre Company. A typical commute is fairly short, and a good many people work from home.
Things to do. In or beside town, the Princeton Art Museum is a museum worth an afternoon, and Lake Carnegie is a reservoir for time by the water. McCarter Theatre is a theatre close to hand for an evening out. Trenton Speedway, a race track, is a short drive away.
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- 9,300households
- 85%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 33%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Mercer County had 261,312 jobs in 2025, 1.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 21°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 63°. About 24 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Hightstown West weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Princeton
- Princeton Public School DistrictSchool district788FTE
- Princeton Theological SeminaryUniversity or college270
- McCarter Theatre CompanyTheaters, live theatrical production151
- Graduate PrincetonHotel management services80
- Princeton Charter SchoolSchool district53FTE
- Compass Group51
- Wawa SiteConvenience store38
- The Princeton DinerRestaurants, full service30
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 379 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively 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 Princeton’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 Mercer County and the Trenton-Princeton, NJ metro.
Princeton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Princeton$954,354
- 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 5 Princeton listings, and the typical home goes pending in 25 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.
- Princeton19.01%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Princeton25
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Princeton190
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Princeton50
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Princeton$992,759
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Princeton102.31%
Zip codes with a Princeton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Princeton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Princeton
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08540 | Princeton | 50,388 | $3,341 | $963,053 |
| 08542 | Princeton | 2,533 | $3,327 | $898,217 |