Schenectady, New York.
Typical home $331,463 (+5.1% in a year), asking rent $1,517 (+2.6%). Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$976 (+128%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,232 +5%
- $315,231$331,463 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $84,308 +34%
- $247,155$331,463 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.
- Schenectady$1,740
- 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 Schenectady, NY rose 5.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Schenectady, NY rose 2.6% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Schenectady runs $1,230/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $2,747 a month against $1,517 rent: a $1,740 mortgage payment, plus $653 property tax and $355 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Schenectady
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$2,747
- Renting$1,517
- Mortgage only$1,740
Property tax · $653/mo 2.36% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Schenectady County, NY
Insurance & upkeep · $355/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 Schenectady, Schenectady County, New York
Schenectady is a city of 67,047 people in Schenectady County. Half its households earn more than $58,399 a year and half less, against $79,623 across Schenectady County; 24% of its people live below the poverty line. 46% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 54% are rented. Unemployment in Schenectady was 5.3% in August 2026, and Schenectady County had 2.9% 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. Schenectady is a small city in the Mohawk Valley region of upstate New York, with a population that is younger than in many places. Fewer homes are lived in by their owners than you would expect in a town of this size, so renting is common. Incomes run well below the county's as a whole, and poverty is more widespread than in most places. Winters are cold, with a great deal of snow, and summers are warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with professional and business services, shops, and restaurants and hotels also employing a good number. Ellis Hospital, the Schenectady City School District and Union College are among the largest workplaces in the city. Across the county, the number of jobs grew last year, though unemployment in the city is about where it stood a year ago.
Things to do. Proctor's Theatre, a theatre in or beside town, and the Museum of Innovation and Science, a museum also in or beside town, are the easiest places to reach. For open space, the Albany Pine Bush is a protected area a short drive away. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to the New York State Museum.
Report a mistake
- 29,184households
- 25%of adults have a degree
- 24%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Schenectady County had 60,183 jobs in 2025, 2.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 33° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 59 inches of snow and 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Albany Airport weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Schenectady
- Ellis HospitalGeneral hospital2,026FTE
- Schenectady City School DistrictSchool district1,685FTE
- Union CollegeUniversity or college801
- Northeast Shared Services EastGrocery stores444
- Sunnyview Hospital and RehabilitatioGeneral hospital358FTE
- Schenectady County Community CollegeTwo-year college339
- County JailJails243
- District OfficeElementary and secondary schools207
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 58 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 9,275 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts 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
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Schenectady’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 Schenectady County and the Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY metro.
Schenectady home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Schenectady$331,463
- 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 4 Schenectady listings, and the typical home goes pending in 8 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.
- Schenectady24.85%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Schenectady8
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Schenectady342
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Schenectady168
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Schenectady$312,335
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Schenectady104.11%
Zip codes with a Schenectady address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Schenectady — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Schenectady
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12309 | Schenectady | 33,246 | $1,494 | $416,191 |
| 12303 | Schenectady | 29,360 | $1,371 | $322,292 |
| 12302 | Schenectady | 28,031 | $1,690 | $334,325 |
| 12306 | Schenectady | 27,865 | $1,696 | $300,706 |
| 12304 | Schenectady | 22,403 | $2,075 | $262,047 |
| 12308 | Schenectady | 15,511 | $1,569 | $267,347 |
| 12305 | Schenectady | 7,356 | $1,403 | $287,715 |
| 12307 | Schenectady | 7,050 | — | $185,471 |