Watchung, New Jersey.
Typical home $1,068,988 (+5.0% in a year), asking rent $2,540 . New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$3,062 (+120%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $50,495 +5%
- $1,018,493$1,068,988 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $279,149 +35%
- $789,840$1,068,988 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.
- Watchung$5,611
- New Jersey$3,019
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Watchung, NJ rose 5.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Watchung, Somerset County, New Jersey
Watchung is a borough of 6,449 people in Somerset County. Half its households earn more than $173,672 a year and half less, against $140,374 across Somerset County; 1% of its people live below the poverty line. 84% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 16% are rented. Unemployment in Somerset County was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Watchung is a small borough in Somerset County where nearly all homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run well above the county's, very few residents live below the poverty line, and most adults hold a four-year degree. Homes are costly to buy and to rent. Winters are cold, with highs near freezing in January and a fair amount of snow, while summers turn hot by July and rain falls steadily through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in manufacturing, professional and business services, and banking, insurance and property. Within the borough itself, the largest workplaces include the Watchung Borough School District and Brandywine Living at Mountain Ridge, an assisted-living facility. Commutes are on the long side, and unemployment in the county has eased compared with a year earlier, while the number of jobs there has edged up.
Things to do. The best-known places nearby are all a longer drive away. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art are museums, and Central Park is a garden. The Statue of Liberty, also a longer drive away, is one of the country's best-known tourist attractions.
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- 2,357households
- 64%of adults have a degree
- 1%below the poverty line
- 34 mintypical commute
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Somerset County had 192,374 jobs in 2025, 1.0% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 41° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 66°. About 21 inches of snow and 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Plainfield weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Watchung
- Watchung Borough School DistrictSchool district105FTE
- Brandywine Living at Mountain RidgeAssisted-living facilities without on-site nursing care facilities78
- AramarkFood service contractors20
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 98 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
- Inland floodingVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Watchung’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Somerset County and the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro.
Watchung home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Watchung$1,068,988
- New Jersey$575,123
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Watchung listings — 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.
- Watchung24.00%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Watchung32
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Watchung7
Zip codes with a Watchung address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Watchung — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.