Cost of Living & Housing in Madison
Madison's cost of living centers on a real, genuine shoreline-town affordability picture, alongside an unusually wide, honestly disclosed spread on the effective property tax rate this record does not resolve to one number.
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Learn moreA real, cited $699,000 median home price
Madison's 2026 housing market carries a real, cited median home price of approximately $699,000 (Homes.com, June 2026), with a separate cited median sale price of approximately $760,000 for the Madison Center submarket (Redfin, December 2025) and a separate, close, cited typical value of approximately $741,530 (August 2026) -- all broadly consistent with a genuinely expensive shoreline housing market (base record).
A real, wide, disclosed spread on the effective property tax rate
Madison's real, current mill rate of 22.43 (effective July 1, 2025) computes to a mill-rate-derived effective property tax rate of approximately 1.57%, though a separate, real, cited Ownwell figure ran substantially higher, at approximately 3.00% -- a real, disclosed cross-source spread partly reflecting a genuine county-attribution ambiguity found in aggregator sources this pass (Madison, CT is correctly a New Haven County town) (base record).
Connecticut's 6.99% top income tax rate and flat 6.35% sales tax
Connecticut's real, current top marginal individual income tax rate is 6.99% on taxable income above $500,000 (single) / $1,000,000 (joint), with no local-option city or town income tax anywhere in the state, and a flat 6.35% state sales tax with no local add-on (base record).
The highest median household income of this project's Shoreline Tier C towns
Madison's median household income runs a real, cited approximately $167,442 (2024) -- the highest of this project's three Connecticut Shoreline Tier C towns (Old Saybrook, Guilford, Madison), genuinely affluent though more moderate than this project's Fairfield County Gold Coast towns (base record).
Key takeaways
- Madison's median home price runs approximately $699,000-$760,000 depending on source, consistent with a genuinely expensive shoreline market.
- Madison's effective property tax rate carries an unusually wide, honestly disclosed spread (1.57%-3.00%) -- confirm directly with the town before budgeting.
- Connecticut's 6.99% top income tax rate and flat 6.35% sales tax apply uniformly across the state.
- Madison's median household income (~$167,442) runs the highest of this project's three Connecticut Shoreline Tier C towns.
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