Chester, Montana.
Typical home $202,491 (-2.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$576 (+119%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $5,767 -3%
- $208,258$202,491 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $39,761 +24%
- $162,730$202,491 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$1,063
- Montana$2,453
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Chester, MT fell 2.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Chester, Liberty County, Montana
Chester is a town of 847 people in Liberty County. Half its households earn more than $53,750 a year and half less, against $57,857 across Liberty County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 56% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 44% are rented. Unemployment in Liberty County was 2.3% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Liberty County work in farming, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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 small town on the Montana Hi-Line, in farm country in Liberty County. Incomes here run a little below the county's, and somewhat more households than elsewhere in the county live below the poverty line. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and a typical home costs far less than in many parts of the country. Winters are long and cold, with a good deal of snow, and summers are warm; the area is dry for most of the year.
Work. Many residents work in farming, schools and hospitals, the building trades or government. Among the largest workplaces in Chester are Logan Health Chester, a critical access hospital, Stricks Ag, a dry bean wholesaler, and the Chester-Joplin-Inverness elementary school district. Unemployment in Liberty County is low and close to where it stood a year ago, and the county has added a few more jobs. Very few people work from home.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Lake Elwell is a reservoir a longer drive from town, and it is the one nearby place worth naming here. With cold, snowy winters and warm summers, the seasons shape what people do outside.
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- 370households
- 30%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 3%work from home
What people in Liberty County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Liberty County had 517 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 3°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 52°. About 36 inches of snow and 12 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Chester weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Chester
- Logan Health ChesterCritical access hospital50FTE
- Stricks AgBeans, dry, merchant wholesalers36
- Chester-Joplin-Inverness El SchoolsSchool district35FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 125 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively 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, relatively high. 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 Liberty County.
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$202,491
- Montana$467,275
- 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.
- Chester7
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.