Alstead, New Hampshire.
Typical home $350,840 (+1.8% in a year). Keene, NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,168 (+173%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,361 +2%
- $344,479$350,840 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $104,535 +42%
- $246,305$350,840 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.
- Alstead$1,841
- New Hampshire$2,682
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Alstead, NH rose 1.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Alstead, Cheshire County, New Hampshire
Alstead is a town of 1,864 people in Cheshire County. Half its households earn more than $64,526 a year and half less, against $83,329 across Cheshire County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 76% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 24% are rented. Unemployment in Cheshire County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Alstead is a small New Hampshire town where most homes are lived in by their owners, and residents are older than in most places. Incomes run below the county's, and homes are worth more than many people might expect for a rural town. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm days, and moisture falls fairly evenly through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with building trades, manufacturing and shops also employing many. Across Cheshire County, some of the largest workplaces are Cheshire Medical Center, Keene State College and the Keene School District. The commute to work is long, and some people work from home, which suits a town this rural.
Things to do. Water is close at hand, with Saxtons River and Cold River both a short drive away and Granite Lake, a reservoir, nearby as well. Steamtown, U.S.A., a museum, is also a short drive away. For a longer outing, Fort at Number 4 is a museum a longer drive off.
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- 721households
- 28%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 32 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cheshire County had 30,753 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 58°. About 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Walpole 2S Nepp weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cheshire County
- EMD MilliporeLaboratory analytical instruments manufacturing989
- Cheshire Medical CenterGeneral hospital737FTE
- Keene State CollegeUniversity or college619
- Franklin Pierce UniversityUniversity or college608
- Keene School DistrictSchool district606FTE
- CS Wholesale Grocers : Keene - Corporate Dr470
- CS Wholesale Grocers : Keene - Optical Ave412
- Dartmouth Hitchcock KeenePhysicians' offices411
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 83 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,030 people in all across the county; Alstead has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (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
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Cheshire County, 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 Cheshire County and the Keene, NH metro.
Alstead home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Alstead$350,840
- New Hampshire$510,937
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Alstead12
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Alstead5
Zip codes with a Alstead address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Alstead — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.