Somerville, Massachusetts.
Typical home $920,007 (+0.1% in a year), asking rent $3,428 (+2.7%). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,963 (+68%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,369 +0%
- $918,637$920,007 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $56,342 +7%
- $863,664$920,007 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.
- Somerville$4,829
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 55 years.
Typical home values in Somerville, MA rose 0.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Somerville, MA rose 2.7% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Somerville runs $3,176/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $3,468 in Jan 2025.
That is $6,604 a month against $3,428 rent: a $4,829 mortgage payment, plus $790 property tax and $985 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Somerville
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$6,604
- Renting$3,428
- Mortgage only$4,829
Property tax · $790/mo 1.03% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Middlesex County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $985/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 Somerville, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Somerville is a city of 81,045 people in Middlesex County. Half its households earn more than $132,572 a year and half less, against $130,847 across Middlesex County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 34% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 66% are rented. Unemployment in Somerville was 3.3% in August 2026, and Middlesex County had 2.4% fewer 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. Somerville is a densely built city just across the river from Boston, with a young population and a long list of residents who hold a four-year degree. Most households rent rather than own, and typical rents and home values run high, while household incomes sit slightly above the county's. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in professional and business services, with manufacturing and shops also employing a good number. Mass General Brigham, with its offices and physicians' practices, and the Somerville school district are among the largest workplaces in the city. Commutes tend to run longer than a quick trip across town, and a good share of residents work from home. Unemployment has eased a little over the past year, though across Middlesex County there were fewer jobs last year than the year before.
Things to do. Several museums sit in or beside town, including the Harvard Art Museums and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. A short drive away are the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, an art museum, and Fenway Park, a stadium. The Freedom Trail, a walking route through Boston's colonial history, is also a short drive away.
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- 35,715households
- 69%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 31%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Middlesex County had 903,942 jobs in 2025, 2.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 23°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 66°. About 49 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Boston Logan International Airport weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Somerville
- Mass General BrighamCorporate offices9,695
- Mass General BrighamPhysicians' offices847
- Somerville SchoolsSchool district796FTE
- Mass General Brigham Health PlanHealth insurance carriers, direct565
- Somerville555
- Century Linen SomervilleLaundries, linen and uniform supply381
- FormlabsCircuit board making machinery manufacturing347
- Demoulas Super Markets319
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 36 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 15,217 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
FEMA rates every natural hazard here relatively low or very low.
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Somerville’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 Middlesex County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
Somerville home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Somerville$920,007
- Massachusetts$655,219
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Somerville listings, and the typical home goes pending in 18 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Somerville25.04%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Somerville18
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Somerville177
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Somerville60
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Somerville$878,258
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Somerville100.75%
Zip codes with a Somerville address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Somerville — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Somerville
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02145 | Somerville | 27,495 | $3,238 | $815,825 |
| 02143 | Somerville | 25,513 | $3,176 | $932,476 |
| 02144 | Somerville | 25,448 | $4,065 | $1,027,861 |