Bernardston, Massachusetts.
Typical home $376,342 (+0.7% in a year). Springfield, MA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,079 (+120%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,603 +1%
- $373,739$376,342 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $65,208 +21%
- $311,134$376,342 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.
- Bernardston$1,975
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Bernardston, MA rose 0.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bernardston, Franklin County, Massachusetts
Bernardston is a town of 2,102 people in Franklin County. Half its households earn more than $81,940 a year and half less, against $74,907 across Franklin County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 78% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Franklin County was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Bernardston is a small town in Franklin County, in the hills of western Massachusetts. The people who live here are older than in most places, and nearly everyone owns the home they live in, with ownership well above what is typical across the county. Household incomes run above the county's, and few residents live below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow fall throughout the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, manufacturing and the building trades also common. The commute is a modest one, and a good number of people work from home. Across Franklin County, some of the largest workplaces are Baystate Franklin Medical Center, Greenfield Schools and Greenfield Community College. Job numbers across the county slipped a little last year, and unemployment there is about where it was a year ago.
Things to do. A short drive away, the Deerfield River is the nearest of several rivers around the town, and Fort Dummer is a short drive away as well. Farther afield, Historic Deerfield is a museum of old village life, and the Emily Dickinson Museum is a longer drive to the south. The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, a long-distance hiking route, is also a longer drive away.
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- 917households
- 29%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Franklin County had 25,008 jobs in 2025, 1.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 33° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 59°. About 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Greenfield #3 weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Franklin County
- Baystate Franklin Medical CenterGeneral hospital490FTE
- Pelican ProductsAwnings, rigid plastics or fiberglass, manufacturing365
- Greenfield SchoolsSchool district284FTE
- Nourse Farms AcquisitionBerry farming282
- Greenfield Community CollegeTwo-year college279
- Judd WireRod, copper and copper alloy, made from purchased copper or in integrated secondary smelting and rolling, drawing or extruding plants266
- Mohawk Trail SchoolsSchool district202FTE
- Gill-Montague SchoolsSchool district196FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 56 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,475 people in all across the county; Bernardston has two of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Franklin 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 Franklin County and the Springfield, MA metro.
Bernardston home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bernardston$376,342
- Massachusetts$655,219
- 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.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Bernardston address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bernardston — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.