Worcester, MA-CT
Boston's affordable cousin. Worcester runs HPI **+54.2% over 5 years**, **+4.01% YoY** still hot, on a **$390K median** — half of Boston's median. P/I 4.18 moderate, R/I 27.8% moderate, **cap proxy 4.32% workable**. Permits **1.64 per 1,000 — TIGHT** (NE supply lock). Migration −793 (−0.08%) shrinking. Worcester County MA core; Windham County CT adds the −CT spur to the metro pop. Anchored by UMass Memorial, WPI, College of the Holy Cross, biotech corridor.
The numbers that matter most
What an investor checks first when sizing up a new metro — affordability ratio, rent vs income, cap rate proxy, and where the market is moving. Each metric shown vs. state and national medians for instant context.
moderate
Price to income
4.18×
The single most-cited 'is this market still cheap' check. Below 3× and you're in an affordability tailwind.
- vs Massachusetts
- 4.18×=
- vs U.S.
- 3.43×
Benchmark
ACS median home value ÷ median HHI
moderate
Rent to income
27.8%
What share of a typical household's income goes to rent. Below 30% means tenants can absorb modest rent increases.
- vs Massachusetts
- 29.5%-1.7
- vs U.S.
- 23.3%
Benchmark
(HUD FMR 2BR × 12) ÷ median HHI
deal-by-deal
Cap rate proxy
4.3%
Rough first-pass yield assuming a 35% expense ratio. Not an underwriting number — a 'is this even worth modeling' filter.
- vs Massachusetts
- 4.3%=
- vs U.S.
- 4.4%
Benchmark
(FMR 2BR × 12 × 0.65) ÷ ACS median home value
shrinking
Net migration
-0.08%
Forward-looking demand signal. Positive net migration drives rent growth and absorbs new supply.
- vs Massachusetts
- -0.09%+0.01
- vs U.S.
- 0.04%
Benchmark
IRS net migration ÷ population
pipeline contracting
Permit pipeline
1.64
permits per 1,000 residents
Forward-supply indicator. Above ~5 means the metro is building meaningfully relative to its size; below 2 means supply is tight.
- vs Massachusetts
- 1.64=
- vs U.S.
- 3.49
Benchmark
Census BPS permits TTM ÷ population × 1,000
softening
Unemployment
—
Tighter unemployment means higher wages, more rental demand, lower vacancy.
- vs Massachusetts
- 4.3%
- vs U.S.
- 4.0%
Benchmark
BLS LAUS, latest month
Section index — click any row to jump
What the data says about Worcester
Worcester is Boston's affordable cousin. Across 1 reported county — Worcester County, MA (the metro is technically Worcester, MA-CT and the federal pop count of 975,551 includes Windham County, CT, but Connecticut's 2022 planning region transition broke the county-level data for the CT spur) — the metro packs nearly 1 million residents with a household income of $93,561 (Census ACS) and a median home value of $390,700. The HUD Fair Market Rent for a 2-bedroom is $2,166. The House Price Index ran +54.2% over five years (FHFA HPI) — solid New England territory, beating the U.S. metros average of +34.3% by 20 percentage points.
The interesting fact is that Worcester is Boston compounding without Boston prices. Recent year-over-year HPI is +4.01% — top quartile for current-year, still hot. The cap rate proxy is 4.32% — workable. The price-to-income ratio is 4.18 (moderate) and rent-to-income is 27.8% (moderate). Inside Massachusetts, Worcester ranks #2 of 6 by population, #2 by permits, #4 by 5-year HPI — Boston, Cape Cod, and Springfield all run harder, but Worcester is the largest secondary metro at less than half of Boston's median price.
Worcester is a single-county metro by reportable data — though the federal definition includes Windham County, CT:
- Worcester County, MA (859K pop, $390,700 MHV) is the reported core — 88% of metro population. 1,601 permits TTM = 1.86 per 1,000 (county basis). The relevant submarkets are inside Worcester County: Worcester proper (the city), Shrewsbury, Westborough, Northborough, Auburn, Leicester, Grafton, and the Route 9 corridor toward MetroWest. Westborough and Shrewsbury are the affluent eastern submarkets near the Route 495 / Mass Pike biotech corridor.
- Windham County, CT is the southern spur — Putnam, Killingly, Plainfield. ~117K residents. Data unavailable post-2022 CT planning region transition.
The 47% single-family / 47% 5+ multifamily mix is extremely balanced — driven by Worcester city downtown apartment construction (the WPI/Holy Cross/UMass-anchored urban core) plus suburban SFR. Worcester runs 1.64 permits per 1,000 (full metro pop basis) — well below the national 3.49. Permit YoY is −0.6% — slight contraction. This is the New England supply lock: restrictive zoning, conservation, town-by-town veto power. Worcester builds slowly because Worcester (the town) decides not to build fast.
What's changing: net IRS migration is −793 returns (IRS SOI) — −0.08% of population, the classic Northeast out-migration pattern. Owner-occupancy 65.7%, bachelor's-or-higher 39.0% (high), median age 40.3. The labor market is anchored by UMass Memorial Health Care, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), the College of the Holy Cross, Reliant Medical, and the biotech corridor (AbbVie, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline outposts). Education + healthcare + biotech — sticky, diversified, sub-Boston wages.
What does an investor do?
- If you're hunting cash flow: Worcester works at the margin. 4.32% cap proxy on a $390K median is just below national but the rent base is solid (FMR 2BR $2,166). Look at Worcester city neighborhoods (Main South, Vernon Hill, Greendale) and the Auburn/Leicester satellite towns for $250K-$320K SFR with workable rent ratios.
- If you're playing appreciation: Worcester is solid. +54.2% over 5 years with +4.01% YoY is the New England compounding pattern — slow build, sticky supply, sticky demand. Not Sun Belt rocket but durable.
- If you already own here: Hold and look for inventory in the eastern suburbs. The Westborough/Shrewsbury corridor is appreciating faster than the metro median because of the Boston commute spillover. The structural fundamentals — supply lock, biotech employers, 39% bachelor's — say the next 5 years should compound at moderate rates.
Where prices are and where they've been
FHFA House Price Index — repeat-sales index across the metro, sized against this metro's median household income and benchmarked against the Indiana metros average and U.S. metros average.
5-year price appreciation
+54.2%
FHFA HPI · Q1 2020 → Q4 2025
+4.0% YoY
$390,700 median home value
Worcester home prices climbed 54.2% over the last 5 years according to the FHFA repeat-sales index — a steady appreciation pace for a Midwest metro of this size. The 1-year change of 4.0% suggests steady appreciation continuing.
See the chart below for how the metro's appreciation curve stacks up against the Indiana metros average and the U.S. metros average. The gap between the metro and the national line is the "catch-up" or "lag" signal — and the slope tells you whether the gap is widening or closing.
How to read it
- 01Worcester ran **+54.2% over five years** — solid New England territory, beating the U.S. metros average (+34.3%) by 20 points and tracking close to Boston.
- 02**Recent YoY is +4.01%** — still healthy, top quartile for current-year. Worcester is **not** in the slowdown camp like Birmingham (+2.88%) or Tucson (+2.20%).
- 03Inside Massachusetts, Worcester ranks **#4 of 6** for 5-year HPI — Boston, Cape Cod, and Springfield-area metros all run harder. **#2 by population, #2 by permits**.
- 04U.S. metros ran **+34.3%** over the same window. Worcester outperformed by ~20 points — the New England structural floor (constrained supply, sticky employment) is real.
- 05The takeaway: Worcester is **Boston compounding without Boston prices** — 54% over 5 years, 4% YoY, on a $390K base that's less than half of Boston's metro median.
Where the value tier sits — top 1 counties by home value
| County | Median home value | Median HHI | Price-to-income | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Worcester County | $390,700 | $93,561 | 4.18× | moderate |
How to read the FHFA House Price Index
FHFA HPI is a repeat-sales index — it tracks the price change of the same properties over time, smoothing out new construction and luxury transactions. It's built from the mortgage data the GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) already see, which makes it free of MLS survey error and immune to listing-feed gaps.
- 01Repeat-sales method. Tracks the same properties over time, so new construction and luxury transactions don't skew the trend.
- 02Federally sourced. Built from GSE mortgage data — no MLS survey error, no commercial license required to publish.
- 03Slope, not level. Watch the slope of the line, not the absolute index value — a steepening curve is a more reliable buy signal than the level.
The rent ladder
HUD Fair Market Rent by bedroom count, sized against this metro's median household income and benchmarked vs Indiana and the U.S.
Typical 2-bedroom rent
$2,166
/ month · HUD FMR FY 2026
27.8% of median HHI
A typical 2-bedroom in costs the median household 27.8% of their income — 4.5 points above the U.S. average (23.3%) 1.7 points below Massachusetts (29.5%).
HUD calls anything above 30% "rent-burdened." This metro sits comfortably under that line, which means tenants can absorb modest rent increases — and landlords have headroom on rent hikes before pushing tenants out of the market.
Fair Market Rent — by bedroom count
| Bedroom | Monthly | Annual | % of median HHI | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 BR | $1,651 | $19.8K | 21.2% | comfortable |
| 2 BR | $2,166 | $26.0K | 27.8% | moderate |
| 3 BR | $3,012 | $36.1K | 38.6% | rent-burdened |
Why HUD Fair Market Rent matters
FMR is HUD's 40th-percentile rent estimate by bedroom count — refreshed every fiscal year, sourced from Census surveys (not commercial listing data), and used as the cap for Section 8 voucher payments. Three things investors should know:
- 01Defensible benchmark. Federal source, no commercial license required to publish or compare against.
- 02Section 8 ceiling. A property at or below FMR is voucher-eligible — government-paid rent at the FMR cap.
- 03Conservative estimate. 40th percentile means more than half of actual market rents in the metro come in higher.
Labor market direction
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — LAUS (unemployment) + CES (nonfarm employment), benchmarked against the U.S. average.
Unemployment rate
—
BLS LAUS · latest month
Worcester's labor market is softening, with unemployment running at —.
For an investor, tighter unemployment means higher wages, more rental demand, and lower vacancy. The trend chart below shows how the metro's unemployment has moved over the last 30 months.
Unemployment rate
—
Nonfarm jobs
—
Median household income
$93,561
ACS 5-year
How to read the labor market
Two BLS series tell you almost everything you need about a metro's labor market: LAUS (unemployment, refreshed monthly) and CES (nonfarm payroll counts, refreshed monthly). LAUS is the tightness signal; CES is the size and direction signal.
- 01Unemployment is rental demand. Tighter labor markets mean higher wages and lower vacancy — landlords have pricing power when employers are competing for workers.
- 02YoY change is the trend signal. A negative pp YoY change means the labor market tightened over the last year — usually a leading indicator for rent growth.
- 03Nonfarm growth is supply absorption. Positive nonfarm payroll growth absorbs new housing supply and supports the rent + price trajectory together.
What's being built
U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey — trailing 12 months, broken out by structure type, with the YoY change as the directional signal.
Total permits TTM
1,601
Census BPS · trailing 12 months
-0.6% year-over-year
1.64 permits per 1,000 residents
Worcester pulled 1,601 building permits over the trailing 12 months, a contraction 0.6% year-over-year. That works out to 1.64 permits per 1,000 residents, vs the U.S. metros average of 3.49.
Single-family vs multifamily mix matters: 5+ unit permits are lumpy (developers file for entire projects at once), while single-family permits are smoother and more reliable as a demand signal. The chart below breaks out the monthly mix.
Single family
747
trailing 12 months
2–4 unit
109
trailing 12 months
5+ unit
745
trailing 12 months
How to read the supply pipeline
Census BPS publishes building permit counts every month at the county level, by structure type. Single-family permits are the smooth signal — they reflect ongoing builder demand. 5+ unit permits are lumpy and project-level — one apartment approval can spike a month.
- 01Permits per 1,000 residents. The size-adjusted comparison number. Above ~5 means the metro is building meaningfully relative to its population; below 2 means supply is tight.
- 02YoY change is the direction. Year-over-year change in TTM permits tells you whether builders are leaning in or pulling back. Watch this number for trend reversals.
- 03Mix matters for cap rates. Heavy 5+ unit permitting tends to compress cap rates; single-family-dominated pipelines preserve them.
All 1 counties, ranked by population
Census Bureau (population, ACS demographics) + Census Building Permits Survey.
How to read it
- 01**Worcester County is 88% of the metro** — 858,898 residents, 1,601 TTM permits = 1.86 per 1,000 (using county pop) or 1.64 per 1,000 (using full MA-CT metro pop).
- 02The metro is technically **Worcester, MA-CT** — Windham County, CT adds the southern spur. But Connecticut switched to planning regions in 2022 and the county-level permit data is unavailable for the CT piece. Numbers reflect Worcester County MA only.
- 03**47% single-family / 47% 5+ multifamily mix** — extremely balanced, atypical for a metro this size. Driven by Worcester city downtown apartment construction (the WPI/Holy Cross/UMass-anchored urban core) plus suburban SFR.
- 04Worcester runs **1.64 permits per 1,000 residents** — well below the national 3.49. This is the New England supply lock — restrictive zoning, conservation, town-by-town veto power.
- 05**Permit YoY is −0.6%** — slight contraction. Not accelerating like the rust-belt or Sun Belt metros. Worcester builds slowly because Worcester (the town) decides not to build fast.
How to read the map
- 01**Worcester County (the MA core, 88% of population) at 1.86 per 1,000** — well below the national 3.49.
- 02The relevant submarkets are inside Worcester County: Worcester proper (the city), Shrewsbury, Westborough, Northborough, Auburn, Leicester, Grafton, and the towns along Route 9 between Worcester and Framingham/MetroWest.
- 03**Westborough and Shrewsbury** are the affluent eastern submarkets — closer to the Boston commute and the biotech corridor (Route 495 / Mass Pike intersection).
- 04Windham County, CT is geographically the southern spur of the metro but data is unavailable due to Connecticut's 2022 planning region transition (counties were dissolved). The NE corner of CT around Putnam, Killingly, Plainfield is part of the Worcester economic geography but invisible to the federal county-level data.
- 05**The metro builds slow.** The YoY of −0.6% says it's not accelerating, and 1.64/1k is structurally constrained. New England zoning + conservation = supply lock.
| # | County | Population | Median HHI | Home value | Permits TTM | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Worcester County | 858,898 | $93,561 | $390,700 | 1,601 |
Similar metros nationally
5 metros closest to Worcester by population and median household income — head-to-head on the metrics that matter for an investor.
Peer set
5
metros nearest by population + HHI
Worcester is closest in size to Urban Honolulu, Albany, Omaha, New Haven.
The table below ranks every metric — green cells mark the best value in the column, rust cells mark the worst. Worcester is highlighted as the focal row.
| Metro | Pop | Med HHI | Home value | P/I | Cap proxy | HPI 5y | Permits/1k | Migration | Unemp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
★Worcester | 0.98M | $94K | $391K | 4.18× | 4.3% | +54.2% | 1.64 | -0.08% | — |
Urban Honolulu, HI | 1.01M | $104K | $873K | 8.37× | 2.4% | +34.6% | 1.42 | -0.31% | — |
Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY | 0.90M | $86K | $268K | 3.12× | 4.9% | +53.1% | 2.37 | +0.11% | — |
Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA | 0.97M | $83K | $248K | 2.99× | 4.3% | +48.0% | 6.76 | -0.00% | 3.2% |
New Haven-Milford, CT | 0.87M | $86K | $328K | 3.81× | — | +61.1% | — | — | — |
Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ | 0.86M | $83K | $278K | 3.36× | 5.3% | +62.3% | 2.87 | +0.22% | — |
How to read this comparison
Peer metros are picked by population + median household income — the closest five matches nationally — so the comparison is apples-to-apples on size and economic class. Sun Belt entrants like Las Vegas and Nashville are included when they fall in range, which is why this peer set spans both the Midwest and the Sun Belt.
- 01Green = best in column. The cell with the most-favorable value for that metric, accounting for whether higher or lower is better.
- 02Rust = worst in column. The cell with the least-favorable value. Combined with the green markers, this is your at-a-glance "where does my metro win and where does it lose."
- 03Cap proxy is the yield lens. Cap rate proxy = (FMR 2BR × 12 × 0.65) ÷ median home value. A first-pass yield filter, not an underwriting number — but it puts the peer set on a single comparable scale.
Where people are moving in from
IRS Statistics of Income — Tax Year 2022. Excludes intra-metro suburban churn.
Net migration
-793
tax returns · IRS SOI · TY 2022
-0.08% of metro population
4,944 from top origin
Worcester is slowly losing residents on net — net IRS migration of −793 returns, −0.08% of population. The classic Northeast pattern: educated households leaving for Sun Belt and Boston-area markets, replaced (barely) by inflows from rural New England and the New York metro.
The IRS data lags by ~2 years (households file taxes the year after they move), but it's the only nationwide county-to-county migration data sourced from administrative records, not survey estimates. The table below shows the top origin counties — the gravitational sources of new residents.
Top origin counties — where new residents are coming from
| Origin county | Tax returns |
|---|---|
| Middlesex County, MA | 4,944 |
| Norfolk County, MA | 1,087 |
| Suffolk County, MA | 1,015 |
| Essex County, MA | 620 |
| Providence County, RI | 507 |
| Hampden County, MA | 462 |
Who lives in Worcester
U.S. Census Bureau · American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates · 2019–2023 vintage.
Who lives here
- Median age
- 40.3
- Owner-occupancy
- 65.7%
- Bachelor's+
- 39.0%
Worcester mature Midwest metro: Median age 40.3, 65.7% owner-occupancy 39.0% holding a bachelor's degree or higher. Stable, educated, and mostly homeowner-driven.
The catch: 47.1% of renter households are rent-burdened (paying 30%+ of income on rent) — high enough to flag as a constraint on rent growth even though the headline rent-to-income ratio looks comfortable.
- Median household income
- $93,561
- Median age
- 40.3
- Bachelor's+ degree
- 39.0%
- Owner-occupancy rate
- 65.7%
- Vacancy rate
- 5.7%
- Rent burdened (30%+)
- 47.1%
Data sources
| Metric | Source | Type | Vintage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home prices | FHFA — House Price Index | Index | Q4 2025 |
| Fair market rents | HUD — Fair Market Rents | Administrative | FY 2026 |
| Unemployment rate | BLS — Local Area Unemployment Statistics | Survey | Dec 2025 |
| Nonfarm employment | BLS — Current Employment Statistics | Survey | Dec 2025 |
| Building permits | Census — Building Permits Survey | Survey | Mar 2026 TTM |
| Migration flows | IRS — Statistics of Income, Migration Data | Administrative | Tax Year 2022 |
| Demographics | Census — American Community Survey 5-Year | Survey | 2019–2023 |
| Household income | Census — American Community Survey 5-Year | Survey | 2019–2023 |
Page last refreshed: April 9, 2026