Calais, Vermont.
Typical home $404,911 (+3.4% in a year). Barre, VT metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,056 (+99%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,155 +3%
- $391,755$404,911 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $55,855 +16%
- $349,055$404,911 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.
- Calais$2,125
- Vermont$2,057
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Calais, VT rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Calais, Washington County, Vermont
Calais is a town of 1,661 people in Washington County. 92% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 8% are rented. Unemployment in Washington County was 2.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% 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 24 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Calais is a small Vermont town where almost everyone owns the home they live in, a much higher rate of ownership than most places. Many adults hold a four-year degree, and household incomes sit comfortably in a range that matches the county's own. Winters are long, cold and very snowy, summers are mild and warm, and precipitation is spread fairly evenly through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in shops, the building trades, and professional and business services. A good number of people work from home, and the typical commute is a fairly long one. Across Washington County, the largest workplaces include the State of Vermont, Central Vermont Hospital and Norwich University, and unemployment has held steady over the past year.
Things to do. A short drive away are Hubbard Park, Putnam State Forest and Kettle Pond State Park, all good for walking and time outdoors. The Winooski River is also close by. For skiing, Trapp Family Lodge is a longer drive.
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- 674households
- 55%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 23%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Washington County had 33,302 jobs in 2025, 0.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 26° and lows near 8°; warmest in July, with highs near 77° and lows near 58°. About 126 inches of snow and 46 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Worcester West weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Washington County
- The State of VermontExecutive and legislative office combinations9,880
- Central Vermont HospitalGeneral hospital1,297FTE
- Norwich UniversityUniversity or college788
- Community College of VermontTwo-year college506
- Sugarbush Mountain ResortHotels499
- Barre Unified Union School District #97School district443FTE
- Harwood Unified Union School District #60School district352FTE
- Washington Central Unified Union School District #92School district300FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 48 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 13,774 people in all across the county; Calais 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
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Washington 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 Washington County and the Barre, VT metro.
Calais home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Calais$404,911
- Vermont$391,900
- 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.
- Calais10
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Calais address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Calais — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.