Rochester, New York.
Typical home $240,168 (+4.7% in a year), asking rent $1,454 (+3.5%). Rochester, NY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$181 (+17%) since Jan 2024.
- 1 year
- Up $10,747 +5%
- $229,421$240,168 since Sep 2025
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$1,261
- New York$2,755
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Rochester, NY rose 4.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Rochester, NY rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Rochester runs $590/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $2,044 a month against $1,454 rent: a $1,261 mortgage payment, plus $526 property tax and $257 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Rochester
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$2,044
- Renting$1,454
- Mortgage only$1,261
Property tax · $526/mo 2.63% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Monroe County, NY
Insurance & upkeep · $257/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 Rochester, Monroe County, New York
Rochester is a city of 211,328 people in Monroe County. Half its households earn more than $47,213 a year and half less, against $76,382 across Monroe County; 28% of its people live below the poverty line. 38% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 62% are rented. Unemployment in Rochester was 6.1% in August 2026, and Monroe County had 1.2% more 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. Rochester is a city where most homes are rented rather than lived in by their owners, a pattern quite different from the rest of Monroe County. Residents are younger than in many American places, and household incomes sit well below the county's, with a good share of people living below the poverty line. Winters are cold and very snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm in July, with plenty of rain and melted snow across the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, shops, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in Rochester are the Rochester City School District, Rochester General Hospital and Highland Hospital. Unemployment has edged up a little over the past year, while the county as a whole has added a few more jobs. Commutes are fairly short, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. In or beside town, the George Eastman Museum and The National Museum of Play are among the best known museums, and High Falls is a waterfall right in the city. Seneca Park Zoo is also close by. For a change of scene, Seabreeze Amusement Park is a short drive away.
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- 93,261households
- 30%of adults have a degree
- 28%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Monroe County had 386,911 jobs in 2025, 1.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 33° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 62°. About 102 inches of snow and 35 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Rochester Greater International Airport weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rochester
- Rochester City School DistrictSchool district4,757FTE
- Rochester General HospitalGeneral hospital3,361FTE
- Highland HospitalGeneral hospital2,673FTE
- General MotorsAssembly line rebuilding of automotive and truck gasoline engines1,276
- Bausch and Lomb AmericasContact lenses manufacturing1,067
- Eastman Kodak Company- Eastman Business ParkFilm, sensitized, manufacturing975
- Monroe Community HospitalSkilled nursing facilities692
- Lifetime Care Home Care and HospiceGeneral medical and surgical hospitals685
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 190 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 34,908 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
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Rochester’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 Monroe County and the Rochester, NY 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$240,168
- New York$524,942
- 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 7 Rochester listings, and the typical home goes pending in 9 days — 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.
- Rochester14.49%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Rochester9
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Rochester822
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Rochester490
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Rochester120.18%
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.
Zip codes in Rochester
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14609 | Rochester | 40,274 | $1,504 | $207,099 |
| 14624 | Rochester | 38,626 | $1,567 | $270,698 |
| 14612 | Rochester | 35,152 | $1,344 | $281,668 |
| 14621 | Rochester | 32,381 | $1,344 | $113,066 |
| 14626 | Rochester | 29,273 | $1,671 | $281,649 |
| 14616 | Rochester | 26,863 | $1,392 | $214,508 |
| 14623 | Rochester | 26,032 | $1,916 | $259,522 |
| 14606 | Rochester | 25,538 | $1,353 | $212,313 |
| 14618 | Rochester | 25,476 | $2,118 | $399,223 |
| 14620 | Rochester | 23,769 | $1,784 | $269,786 |
| 14617 | Rochester | 21,788 | $1,556 | $263,028 |
| 14607 | Rochester | 17,891 | $1,311 | $344,430 |
| 14615 | Rochester | 17,884 | $1,253 | $186,884 |
| 14611 | Rochester | 17,145 | $1,312 | $122,693 |
| 14613 | Rochester | 15,047 | $1,203 | $135,798 |
| 14610 | Rochester | 14,311 | $1,857 | $328,855 |
| 14619 | Rochester | 13,477 | $1,652 | $165,211 |
| 14608 | Rochester | 12,792 | $1,264 | $121,000 |
| 14622 | Rochester | 12,574 | $1,412 | $238,499 |
| 14605 | Rochester | 11,783 | $1,225 | $94,557 |
| 14625 | Rochester | 10,717 | — | $370,173 |