Rensselaer, New York.
Typical home $316,412 (+3.5% in a year), asking rent $1,877 (+1.3%). Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$922 (+125%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,578 +3%
- $305,834$316,412 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $80,790 +34%
- $235,623$316,412 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.
- Rensselaer$1,661
- New York$2,755
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Rensselaer, NY rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Rensselaer, NY rose 1.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Rensselaer runs $664/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $2,540 a month against $1,877 rent: a $1,661 mortgage payment, plus $541 property tax and $339 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Rensselaer
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$2,540
- Renting$1,877
- Mortgage only$1,661
Property tax · $541/mo 2.05% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Rensselaer County, NY
Insurance & upkeep · $339/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 Rensselaer, Rensselaer County, New York
Rensselaer is a city of 9,210 people in Rensselaer County. Half its households earn more than $70,080 a year and half less, against $87,915 across Rensselaer County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 43% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 57% are rented. Unemployment in Rensselaer County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then government.
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. Rensselaer is a small city on the east bank of the Hudson River, across from Albany, and its residents are younger than in many American towns. Most households rent rather than own, and incomes run below the county's, with a larger share of people living in poverty than is typical. Winters are cold and snowy, summers turn warm, and precipitation falls fairly evenly through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in government, in manufacturing and in shops. Some of the largest workplaces in town are the OCFS Home Office, which provides child and youth services, Curia New York, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, and the Rensselaer City School District. A fair number of people work from home, and the typical commute is of moderate length.
Things to do. Several historic and cultural sites sit in or beside town, including the New York State Museum and the USS Slater, a museum ship. Fort Orange, an archaeological site, is also in or beside town. Cohoes Falls, a waterfall, is a short drive away.
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- 4,281households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rensselaer County had 56,312 jobs in 2025, 0.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 17°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 64°. About 42 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Troy L&d weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rensselaer
- OCFS Home OfficeChild and youth services907
- Curia New YorkPharmaceutical preparations manufacturing243
- Rensselaer City School DistrictSchool district146FTE
- RensselaerMail and parcel delivery25
- Empire Generating CoElectric power generation, fossil fuel21
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,196 people in all. School districts come 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
- HailRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Rensselaer’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 Rensselaer County and the Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY metro.
Rensselaer home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Rensselaer$316,412
- New York$524,942
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Rensselaer listings — the market is heating up.
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.
- Rensselaer22.34%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Rensselaer44
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Rensselaer19
Zip codes with a Rensselaer address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Rensselaer — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.