Wooster, Ohio.
Typical home $263,113 (+3.4% in a year), asking rent $1,475 (+0.8%). Wooster, OH metro.
Property tax and schools in Wooster
Wooster’s own tax page → what a home here pays, who charges it, its levies and ballot, and its schools.
Wooster is in Wayne County, where its property tax is set. Its homes there are in 3 school districts: Green Local, Triway Local and Wooster City. Check your own bill.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$816 (+144%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,615 +3%
- $254,498$263,113 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $76,334 +41%
- $186,779$263,113 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.
- Wooster$1,381
- Ohio$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Wooster, OH rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Wooster, OH rose 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Wooster runs $445/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $1,920 a month against $1,475 rent: a $1,381 mortgage payment, plus $257 property tax and $282 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Wooster
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$1,920
- Renting$1,475
- Mortgage only$1,381
Property tax · $257/mo 1.17% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Wayne County, OH
Insurance & upkeep · $282/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 Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio
Wooster is a city of 27,232 people in Wayne County. Half its households earn more than $66,898 a year and half less, against $73,574 across Wayne County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 65% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 35% are rented. Unemployment in Wooster was 3.0% in August 2026, and Wayne County had 0.7% fewer 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. Wooster is a small city in Wayne County, Ohio, with a median age a little above what you find across much of the country. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though there are still plenty of renters, and household incomes run below the county's. Winters are cold and snowy, summers are warm, and precipitation is steady through the year.
Work. People in Wooster work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels also employing many. Among the largest workplaces in town are Wooster Community Hospital, The College of Wooster and GOJO Industries. Commutes are short, and unemployment has eased compared with a year earlier, though Wayne County has seen slightly fewer jobs than the year before.
Things to do. Secrest Arboretum, a botanical garden, sits in or beside town and makes an easy walk or short outing. Killbuck Creek, a river, is a short drive away. For a day trip, the First Ladies National Historic Site, a museum, is a longer drive away.
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- 11,108households
- 37%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Wayne County had 48,168 jobs in 2025, 0.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 60°. About 29 inches of snow and 42 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wooster Experiment Station weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest employers in Wooster
- Luk, Inc1,622
- The City of Wooster1,042
- Walmart812
- College of Wooster658
- Artiflex Mfg (Gerstenslagers)625
- Wayne County619
- Wooster Brush Company580
- Gojo475
From the City of Wooster’s annual financial report for 2024, its schedule of principal employers (its source: “Individual employers' responses to City Finance Department surveys”), as Ohio’s Auditor of State publishes it: the report. Employees as the report counts them.
Natural hazards
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Wooster’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 Wayne County and the Wooster, OH metro.
Wooster home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Wooster$263,113
- Ohio$245,982
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Wooster listings, and the typical home goes pending in 15 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.
- Wooster24.45%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Wooster15
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Wooster124
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Wooster46
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Wooster$257,308
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Wooster99.12%
Zip codes with a Wooster address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Wooster — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.