Watertown, New York.
Typical home $205,937 (+4.5% in a year), asking rent $1,546 (+7.8%). Watertown-Fort Drum, NY metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$18 (+2%) since Nov 2023.
- 1 year
- Up $8,802 +4%
- $197,135$205,937 since Sep 2025
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$1,081
- New York$2,755
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Watertown, NY rose 4.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Watertown, NY rose 7.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Watertown runs $20/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $189 in Nov 2023.
That is $1,566 a month against $1,546 rent: a $1,081 mortgage payment, plus $264 property tax and $220 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$1,566
- Renting$1,546
- Mortgage only$1,081
Property tax · $264/mo 1.54% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Jefferson County, NY
Insurance & upkeep · $220/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, Jefferson County, New York
Watertown is a city of 24,685 people in Jefferson County. Half its households earn more than $51,753 a year and half less, against $66,301 across Jefferson County; 20% of its people live below the poverty line. 41% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 59% are rented. Unemployment in Watertown was 4.4% in August 2026, and Jefferson County had 0.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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. Watertown is a small city in northern New York, the seat of Jefferson County. It is a place where most households rent rather than own, and where incomes run below the county's as a whole, with a fair number of residents living below the poverty line. Winters here are long, cold and very snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers are pleasantly warm and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, restaurants and hotels, and government also employing a good share. The largest workplaces in Watertown include Samaritan Medical Center, Watertown City School District and Jefferson Community College. Getting to work is quick, with a short typical commute, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Thompson Park is a park in or beside town, and Watertown Speedway, a race track, is also close by. A short drive away, the Black River offers a place to be out by the water. For a longer drive, Wellesley Island State Park is a protected area, and the St. Lawrence River is the region's great waterway.
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- 11,867households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 16 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Jefferson County had 40,563 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 11°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 62°. About 116 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Watertown weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Watertown
- Samaritan Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,581FTE
- The Arc Jefferson-St LawrenceGroup homes, intellectual and developmental disability678
- Watertown City School DistrictSchool district637FTE
- Samaritan Keep HomeNursing home297
- Jefferson Community CollegeTwo-year college267
- New York Air BrakeBrakes and parts for railroad rolling stock manufacturing258
- US Foods WatertownFood distribution216
- TheMasonry contractors127
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 17 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,004 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Watertown’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 Jefferson County and the Watertown-Fort Drum, NY 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$205,937
- New York$524,942
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Watertown listings, and the typical home goes pending in 33 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.
- Watertown33.83%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Watertown33
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Watertown147
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Watertown37
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Watertown99.22%
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.