Union, New Jersey.
Typical home $572,958 (+3.3% in a year), asking rent $2,589 (+4.9%). New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,662 (+123%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $18,386 +3%
- $554,571$572,958 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $127,970 +29%
- $444,987$572,958 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.
- Union$3,007
- New Jersey$3,019
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Union, NJ rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Union, NJ rose 4.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Union runs $1,934/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,961 in Oct 2023.
That is $4,523 a month against $2,589 rent: a $3,007 mortgage payment, plus $902 property tax and $613 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Union
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$4,523
- Renting$2,589
- Mortgage only$3,007
Property tax · $902/mo 1.89% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Union County, NJ
Insurance & upkeep · $613/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 Union, Union County, New Jersey
Union, in Union County, had 2,229 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Union County was 5.0% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Union County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Union is a small community in Union County, New Jersey, with a population that is modest even by local standards. Homes here are valued well above what is typical across much of the country, and rents are steep, so living in Union costs a good deal whether a household owns or rents. Winters are cold, with highs in the neighborhood of freezing-to-chilly and lows well below that, and the town sees a fair amount of snow each year. Summers turn properly warm, and rain and melted snow are plentiful across the year.
Work. Residents most often work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, transport, warehouses and utilities, and shops. Within Union itself, Super Stop & Shop, the Healthcare Training Institute and Group ONE Investments are among the largest workplaces. Across Union County, unemployment has eased compared with a year earlier, and the number of jobs has grown slightly. The typical commute is of moderate length each way, and a small share of residents work from home.
Things to do. The nearest big draw is Sports Illustrated Stadium, a short drive away. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to the Statue of Liberty, a well-known tourist attraction, and to Central Park, a garden known across the country. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is also a longer drive away, for anyone who likes a day among paintings and sculpture.
Report a mistake
- 11%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What people in Union County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Union County had 231,428 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 68°. About 26 inches of snow and 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cranford weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Union
- Super Stop & ShopGrocery stores131
- Healthcare Training InstituteTwo-year college33
- Group ONE InvestmentsAirport passenger screening security services29
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 160 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24). 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
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Union’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 Union County and the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
Union home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Union$572,958
- New Jersey$575,123
- 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 5 Union listings, and the typical home goes pending in 23 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.
- Union19.35%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Union23
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Union125
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Union45
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Union$584,870
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Union104.06%
Zip codes with a Union address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Union — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Union
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 07083 | Union | 58,170 | $2,586 | $576,973 |
| 07088 | Vauxhall | 2,901 | — | $465,238 |