Chester, New Hampshire.
Typical home $655,404 (+10.8% in a year). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,275 (+195%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $64,107 +11%
- $591,297$655,404 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $242,943 +59%
- $412,461$655,404 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$3,440
- New Hampshire$2,682
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 7 years.
Typical home values in Chester, NH rose 10.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Chester, Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Chester is a town of 5,232 people in Rockingham County. Half its households earn more than $142,212 a year and half less, against $118,331 across Rockingham County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 98% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 2% are rented. Unemployment in Rockingham County was 2.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Chester is a small New Hampshire town where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Residents are older than in most places, and household incomes run well above the county's, with few people living below the poverty line. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm days and the year brings a steady amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in banks, insurance and property, and in professional and business services. Commutes are long, and a good number of people work from home. Across Rockingham County, some of the largest workplaces are Exeter Hospital, Lindt & Sprungli USA and SubCom Cable Systems.
Things to do. Beaver Brook, a river, and Pawtuckaway State Park, a protected area, are both a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to Canobie Lake Park, an amusement park, and the Currier Museum of Art, a museum. The Merrimack River is also a longer drive off.
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- 1,850households
- 41%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 35 mintypical commute
- 16%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rockingham County had 157,506 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 60°. About 76 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the West Hampstead weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rockingham County
- Lonza PortsmouthIntravenous solution preparations manufacturing1,574
- Exeter HospitalGeneral hospital1,256FTE
- Sig Sauer Inc. - PeaseFirearms, small, manufacturing1,100
- WalmartGeneral warehousing and storage1,053
- Lindt & Sprungli USAChocolate and confectionery manufacturing971
- SubCom Cable SystemsFiber optic cable made from purchased fiber optic strand871
- Portsmouth Regional HospitalGeneral hospital832FTE
- Londonderry School DistrictSchool district825FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 353 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 46,302 people in all across the county; Chester has none of its own. 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
- Coastal floodingRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Rockingham County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Rockingham County and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH 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$655,404
- New Hampshire$510,937
- 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.
- Chester15
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Chester6
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.