Westminster, Maryland.
Typical home $460,329 (+1.0% in a year), asking rent $1,705 (+2.4%). Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,230 (+104%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,436 +1%
- $455,893$460,329 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $72,245 +19%
- $388,084$460,329 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.
- Westminster$2,416
- Maryland$2,230
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Westminster, MD rose 1.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Westminster, MD rose 2.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Westminster runs $1,552/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,603 in Oct 2023.
That is $3,257 a month against $1,705 rent: a $2,416 mortgage payment, plus $348 property tax and $493 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Westminster
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$3,257
- Renting$1,705
- Mortgage only$2,416
Property tax · $348/mo 0.91% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Carroll County, MD
Insurance & upkeep · $493/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 Westminster, Carroll County, Maryland
Westminster is a city of 20,126 people in Carroll County. Half its households earn more than $86,219 a year and half less, against $118,211 across Carroll County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 56% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 44% are rented. Unemployment in Carroll County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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. Westminster is a small city and the seat of Carroll County, with a population somewhat younger than you might expect in a county town. Incomes in the city run well below the county's as a whole, and more homes are lived in by their owners than rented, though renting is common too. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July, with a good deal of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, restaurants and hotels, and shops. Among the largest workplaces in Westminster are Carroll County Public Schools, McDaniel College and Carroll Lutheran Village. A fair number of people work from home, and the typical commute is a drive of moderate length each way.
Things to do. The closest outing is Bear Branch Nature Center, a nature museum a short drive away. Farther afield, a longer drive reaches Baltimore, where the Baltimore Museum of Art and the National Aquarium are among the better-known stops. Gettysburg National Military Park, a historic battlefield site, is also a longer drive away.
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- 7,949households
- 36%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Carroll County had 59,443 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 39° and lows near 21°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 64°. About 28 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Hanover Southwest weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Westminster
- Carroll County Public SchoolsSchool district3,426FTE
- McDaniel CollegeUniversity or college851
- Carroll Lutheran VillageContinuing care retirement communities357
- The Arc Carroll CountyDay care centers for disabled persons, the elderly, and persons diagnosed with intellectual and developmental disabilities294
- TargetDiscount department stores205
- WalmartDiscount department stores203
- Westminster TerraceAssisted-living facilities without on-site nursing care facilities150
- AVI FoodsystemsFood service148
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 23 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,452 people in all. School districts come 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of WestminsterRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Westminster’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 Carroll County and the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD metro.
Westminster home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Westminster$460,329
- Maryland$424,890
- 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 3 Westminster listings, and the typical home goes pending in 11 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.
- Westminster29.21%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Westminster11
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Westminster143
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Westminster65
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Westminster$433,861
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Westminster100.46%
Zip codes with a Westminster address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Westminster — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Westminster
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21157 | Westminster | 38,984 | $1,619 | $460,921 |
| 21158 | Westminster | 22,083 | $1,997 | $466,583 |