Amherst, Massachusetts.
Typical home $538,281 (+2.9% in a year), asking rent $2,999 (+4.5%). Springfield, MA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,552 (+122%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,340 +3%
- $522,941$538,281 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $128,245 +31%
- $410,036$538,281 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.
- Amherst$2,825
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Amherst, MA rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Amherst, MA rose 4.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Amherst runs $1,045/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,272 in Oct 2023.
That is $4,044 a month against $2,999 rent: a $2,825 mortgage payment, plus $642 property tax and $576 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Amherst
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$4,044
- Renting$2,999
- Mortgage only$2,825
Property tax · $642/mo 1.43% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Hampshire County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $576/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 Amherst, Hampshire County, Massachusetts
The Census does not count Amherst on its own, so the figures here are Hampshire County's. Half the county's households earn more than $87,001 a year and half less; 11% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 68% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 32% are rented. Unemployment in Hampshire County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 1.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Hampshire County work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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. Amherst sits in Hampshire County in western Massachusetts, and it is home to Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which bring a steady flow of students and visitors. Emily Dickinson, one of the best known American poets, lived and wrote here for much of her life. Winters are cold with a good deal of snow, summers are warm, and rain and melted snow arrive through every season.
Work. Across Hampshire County, residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, shops, professional and business services, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Unemployment is lower than it was a year earlier, though the county had slightly fewer jobs last year than the year before. Homeowners outnumber renters across the county, and a large share of adults hold a degree.
Things to do. The Mead Art Museum and the Emily Dickinson Museum are both in or beside town, so they make easy outings. For a change of scene, the Quabbin Reservoir is a short drive away.
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- 62,114households
- 37.4median age
- 52%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 18%work from home
What people in Hampshire County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hampshire County had 64,889 jobs in 2025, 1.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 60°. About 36 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Amherst weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Hampshire County
- University of Massachusetts-AmherstUniversity or college6,668
- Smith CollegeUniversity or college1,483
- Amherst CollegeUniversity or college1,147
- Mount Holyoke CollegeUniversity or college937
- Cooley Dickinson HospitalGeneral hospital931FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs753
- CS Wholesale Grocers North Hatfield MA PDC424410641
- Northampton SchoolsSchool district476FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 100 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,623 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) 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
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Hampshire 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 Hampshire County and the Springfield, MA metro.
Amherst home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Amherst$538,281
- Massachusetts$655,219
- 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 4 Amherst listings, and the typical home goes pending in 21 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.
- Amherst25.73%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Amherst69
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Amherst22
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Amherst$552,524
- United States$371,553
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Amherst address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Amherst — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.