Speculator, New York.
Typical home $297,496 (+2.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$855 (+121%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,451 +3%
- $290,045$297,496 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $65,401 +28%
- $232,095$297,496 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.
- Speculator$1,561
- New York$2,755
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Speculator, NY rose 2.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Speculator, Hamilton County, New York
Speculator is a village of 406 people in Hamilton County. Half its households earn more than $63,864 a year and half less, against $68,835 across Hamilton County. Unemployment in Hamilton County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 1.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Hamilton County work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Speculator is a very small village in the Adirondacks, in Hamilton County, and its population is small even by the standards of upstate New York. Household incomes in the village run a little below the county's, and a typical home is valued at the figure shown beside this text. Winters here are long and cold, with heavy snowfall, while summers stay mild and pleasant.
Work. Residents of Speculator work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in the building trades, in government, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Hamilton County, the largest workplaces include Indian Lake Central School District, Lake Pleasant Central School District and Wells Central School District. Jobs across the county were fewer last year than the year before, and unemployment is a little higher than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. Jessup River Wild Forest, a protected area, lies in or beside town, which puts woods and trails close at hand. Lake Pleasant and Sacandaga Lake are both a short drive away, and Mason Lake is another lake within easy reach. For a longer outing, Adirondack Park, one of the best known protected areas in the Northeast, is a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 178households
What people in Hamilton County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hamilton County had 1,608 jobs in 2025, 1.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 25° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 75° and lows near 54°. About 102 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Indian Lake 2SW weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Hamilton County
- Indian Lake Central School DistrictSchool district45FTE
- Lake Pleasant Central School DistrictSchool district45FTE
- Wells Central School DistrictSchool district39FTE
- Long Lake Central School DistrictSchool district36FTE
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
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively 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 Speculator’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively 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 Hamilton County.
Speculator home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Speculator$297,496
- New York$524,942
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Speculator address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Speculator — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Speculator
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12164 | Speculator | 539 | — | $282,779 |
| 12108 | Lake Pleasant | 350 | — | $331,326 |