Chester, Maryland.
Typical home $529,788 (+0.8% in a year). Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,414 (+103%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,436 +1%
- $525,352$529,788 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $88,784 +20%
- $441,003$529,788 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.
- Chester$2,781
- Maryland$2,230
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 19 years.
Typical home values in Chester, MD rose 0.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Chester, Queen Anne's County, Maryland
Chester, in Queen Anne's County, had 5,003 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $102,399 a year and half less, against $112,826 across Queen Anne's County; 8% of its people live below the poverty line. 71% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 29% are rented. Unemployment in Queen Anne's County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Chester is a community on Maryland's Eastern Shore, in Queen Anne's County, where residents tend to be somewhat older than in many places and most homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run a little below the county's, though a good number of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the chilliest month, summers are warm and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with professional and business services, shops, and banks, insurance and property also common. Across Queen Anne's County, the largest workplaces include Queen Anne's County Public Schools, Paul Reed Smith Guitars Limited Partnership and Food Lion. The commute is fairly long for many people, and some work from home.
Things to do. The Chester River is a short drive away, and so are the Severn River and Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area that suits an afternoon outdoors. For a bigger day out, the Walters Art Museum is a longer drive away, in the city of Baltimore.
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- 2,117households
- 41%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 33 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Queen Anne's County had 16,289 jobs in 2025, 0.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 29°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 72°. About 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Stevensville 2SW weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Queen Anne's County
- Queen Anne's County Public SchoolsSchool district1,005FTE
- Paul Reed Smith Guitars Limited PartnershipInstruments, musical, manufacturing485
- REEB - Barclay CoreWood window frames and sash manufacturing242
- Green Thumb IndustriesHydroponic crop farming225
- Food LionGrocery stores117
- TargetDiscount department stores117
- NAI Saturn EasternSupermarkets and other grocery stores113
- REEB - Barclay FinishWood window frames and sash manufacturing101
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 26 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,387 people in all across the county; Chester has two of its own. School districts come 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Chester’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Queen Anne's County and the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD metro.
Chester home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Chester$529,788
- Maryland$424,890
- 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 3 Chester listings — 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.
- Chester29.65%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Chester70
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Chester17
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Chester address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Chester — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.