Rochester, Massachusetts.
Typical home $687,191 (+4.1% in a year). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,042 (+130%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $27,323 +4%
- $659,868$687,191 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $155,343 +29%
- $531,849$687,191 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.
- Rochester$3,607
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Rochester, MA rose 4.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Rochester, Plymouth County, Massachusetts
Rochester is a town of 5,717 people in Plymouth County. Half its households earn more than $120,273 a year and half less, against $114,201 across Plymouth County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 88% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 12% are rented. Unemployment in Plymouth County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Plymouth 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Rochester is a small town in Plymouth County where nearly everyone lives in a home they own, and the typical home is worth a good deal more than in many parts of the country. Household incomes run higher than across the county, and fewer residents live below the poverty line than in much of the state. Many adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold, with highs near the freezing mark in January, warm summers, and a fair amount of snow and rain through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in shops and in the building trades. Among the largest workplaces in town are Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical Schools, Costello Dismantling Company and Barnes Tree Service. Commutes tend to be long, and relatively few people work from home, so many residents travel out of town for their jobs.
Things to do. East Over Reservation, a protected area in or beside town, is the nearest place to get outdoors. A short drive away in New Bedford, the New Bedford Whaling Museum and New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park tell the story of the region's seafaring past. A longer drive brings you to Plimoth Patuxet, a museum about early colonial history.
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- 2,235households
- 44%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 36 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What people in Plymouth County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Plymouth County had 197,448 jobs in 2025, 1.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 62°. About 31 inches of snow and 53 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Rochester weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rochester
- Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical SchoolsSchool district94FTE
- Costello Dismantling CompanyDemolition, building and structure80
- Barnes Tree ServiceTree and brush trimming, overhead utility line38
- RochesterMail and parcel delivery22
- P.J. Keating Company-RochesterPavement, highway, road, street, bridge or airport runway, construction20
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 160 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
- Coastal floodingVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Plymouth County, 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 Plymouth County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
Rochester home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Rochester$687,191
- Massachusetts$655,219
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Rochester 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.
- Rochester23.47%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Rochester24
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Rochester7
Zip codes with a Rochester address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Rochester — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.