Watertown, Massachusetts.
Typical home $809,537 (+0.4% in a year), asking rent $3,101 (+2.0%). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,011 (+90%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,884 +0%
- $806,653$809,537 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $121,431 +18%
- $688,106$809,537 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.
- Watertown$4,249
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 21 years.
Typical home values in Watertown, MA rose 0.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Watertown, MA rose 2.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Watertown runs $2,710/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,861 in Jan 2025.
That is $5,811 a month against $3,101 rent: a $4,249 mortgage payment, plus $695 property tax and $867 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Watertown
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$5,811
- Renting$3,101
- Mortgage only$4,249
Property tax · $695/mo 1.03% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Middlesex County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $867/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 Watertown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Watertown is a city in Middlesex County. Half its households earn more than $126,265 a year and half less, against $130,847 across Middlesex County; 8% of its people live below the poverty line. 48% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 52% are rented. Unemployment in Watertown was 3.8% 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 Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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. Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, close to Boston and its neighboring towns. Winters are cold here, and summers are warm, with a good deal of rain and melted snow across the year. Many residents are at a stage of life where they have settled in, and the city's median age sits a little above the middle of working life.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, or in professional and business services, with manufacturing and shops also providing work. Unemployment is lower than it was a year earlier. Incomes in the town run a little below the county's, and a large share of adults hold a four-year degree.
Things to do. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, one of the best known art museums in the country, is a short drive away. Fenway Park, a baseball stadium, is also a short drive off. For a quieter outing, the Charles River lies a longer drive away and offers open water and paths along its banks.
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- 16,371households
- 39.4median age
- 66%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 29%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 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 64°. About 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Jamaica Plain weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Middlesex County
- Harvard UniversityUniversity or college20,667
- Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUniversity or college14,957
- BSCInstruments, mechanical microsurgical, manufacturing9,812
- Mass General BrighamCorporate offices9,695
- Tufts UniversityUniversity or college5,494
- Boston CollegeUniversity or college4,526
- Cambridge Health AllianceGeneral hospital3,806FTE
- Lahey Medical CenterHospitals, general medical and surgical3,793
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1,245 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 239,905 people in all across the county; Watertown has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Ice stormsVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Middlesex County, 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 Middlesex County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
Watertown home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Watertown$809,537
- Massachusetts$655,219
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Watertown listings, and the typical home goes pending in 10 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.
- Watertown20.88%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Watertown10
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Watertown74
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Watertown31
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Watertown$748,079
- United States$371,553
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Watertown100.80%
Zip codes with a Watertown address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Watertown — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.