Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Typical home $202,099 (-2.2% in a year), asking rent $1,346 (+3.7%). Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$630 (+146%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $4,628 -2%
- $206,727$202,099 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $56,138 +38%
- $145,962$202,099 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.
- Scranton$1,061
- Pennsylvania$1,507
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Scranton, PA fell 2.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Scranton, PA rose 3.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Scranton runs $182/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $271 in Jun 2025.
That is $1,529 a month against $1,346 rent: a $1,061 mortgage payment, plus $251 property tax and $216 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Scranton
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$1,529
- Renting$1,346
- Mortgage only$1,061
Property tax · $251/mo 1.49% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lackawanna County, PA
Insurance & upkeep · $216/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 Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania
Scranton is a city of 76,328 people in Lackawanna County. Half its households earn more than $50,739 a year and half less, against $66,223 across Lackawanna County; 23% of its people live below the poverty line. 50% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 50% are rented. Unemployment in Scranton was 5.3% in August 2026, and Lackawanna County had 0.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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. Scranton is a city in Lackawanna County, with a population that makes it one of the larger cities in northeastern Pennsylvania. Incomes here run below the county's as a whole, and more of its people live below the poverty line than is typical. Owners and renters are about evenly split among households, so renting is common. Winters are cold and snowy, with January highs near freezing, while summers turn warm in July, and rain and melted snow fall through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, restaurants and hotels, and manufacturing also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Scranton are Community Medical Center, the University of Scranton and the Scranton school district. Unemployment has eased over the past year, and Lackawanna County has added a few more jobs than it had the year before. Commutes are fairly short, and most people travel to work rather than working from home.
Things to do. Steamtown National Historic Site, a protected area given over to railroading, sits in or beside town, as does the Electric City Trolley Museum. Nay Aug Park, a garden and green space, is also in or beside town, and Montage Mountain, a ski area, is a short drive away. Between them they cover museums, time outdoors and winter sport without going far.
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- 30,247households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 23%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lackawanna County had 98,798 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 36° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 63°. About 45 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wilkes-barre International Airport weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Scranton
- Community Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,718FTE
- University of ScrantonUniversity or college1,007
- Scranton SDSchool district967FTE
- Regional Hospital of ScrantonGeneral hospital921FTE
- Marywood UniversityUniversity or college592
- ScrantonMail and parcel delivery478
- Lackawanna CollegeUniversity or college368
- The Jewish Home of EasternSkilled nursing facilities220
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 47 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,331 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts 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
- Winter weatherrelatively high in parts of ScrantonRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Scranton’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 Lackawanna County and the Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA metro.
Scranton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Scranton$202,099
- Pennsylvania$287,078
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Scranton listings, and the typical home goes pending in 16 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.
- Scranton26.74%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Scranton16
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Scranton227
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Scranton80
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Scranton$189,149
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Scranton98.84%
Zip codes with a Scranton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Scranton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Scranton
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18504 | Scranton | 21,069 | $1,297 | $196,846 |
| 18505 | Scranton | 20,797 | $1,430 | $197,929 |
| 18510 | Scranton | 14,332 | $1,252 | $207,591 |
| 18509 | Scranton | 13,055 | $1,332 | $227,217 |
| 18512 | Scranton | 12,986 | $1,233 | $226,509 |
| 18508 | Scranton | 11,565 | $1,432 | $171,277 |
| 18503 | Scranton | 1,629 | $1,625 | $168,419 |