Keene, New Hampshire.
Typical home $353,214 (+3.3% in a year), asking rent $1,833 (+3.2%). Keene, NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,167 (+170%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,404 +3%
- $341,810$353,214 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $110,456 +46%
- $242,758$353,214 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.
- Keene$1,854
- New Hampshire$2,682
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Keene, NH rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Keene, NH rose 3.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Keene runs $1,034/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $2,868 a month against $1,833 rent: a $1,854 mortgage payment, plus $636 property tax and $378 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Keene
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,868
- Renting$1,833
- Mortgage only$1,854
Property tax · $636/mo 2.16% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Cheshire County, NH
Insurance & upkeep · $378/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Keene, Cheshire County, New Hampshire
Keene is a city of 23,047 people in Cheshire County. Half its households earn more than $78,445 a year and half less, against $83,329 across Cheshire County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 55% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 45% are rented. Unemployment in Keene was 3.0% in August 2026, and Cheshire County had 1.2% 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. Keene is a small city in the southwest corner of New Hampshire, with a population that is younger than the typical American town's, helped along by a four-year college within its limits. Incomes run a little below the county's, and homes are lived in by their owners only slightly more often than they are rented, so renting is a common arrangement. Winters are cold and snowy, with January highs near freezing and lows well below it, while summers turn warm and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Schools, hospitals and social care employ more of Keene's residents than any other kind of work, followed by shops, manufacturing, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Cheshire Medical Center, Keene State College and the Keene School District are among the largest workplaces in town. Commutes are short, and unemployment has stayed low and steady over the past year, though the county as a whole has lost a few jobs.
Things to do. Much of what draws people outdoors lies close by. Spofford Lake and Chesterfield Gorge Natural Area, a protected area, are both a short drive away, and Granite Gorge Ski Area is another short drive for those who enjoy the snow. Rhododendron State Park, a botanical garden, is a longer drive but worth the trip when its plantings are in bloom.
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- 9,399households
- 44%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 16%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cheshire County had 30,753 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 56°. About 60 inches of snow and 46 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Keene weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Keene
- Cheshire Medical CenterGeneral hospital737FTE
- Keene State CollegeUniversity or college619
- Keene School DistrictSchool district606FTE
- CS Wholesale Grocers : Keene - Corporate Dr470
- CS Wholesale Grocers : Keene - Optical Ave412
- Dartmouth Hitchcock KeenePhysicians' offices411
- Markem-ImajeCoding, dating, and imprinting packaging machinery manufacturing282
- HannafordGrocery stores216
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 35 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,299 people in all. 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
- LightningRelatively high
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of KeeneRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Keene’s census tracts, 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 Cheshire County and the Keene, NH metro.
Keene home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Keene$353,214
- New Hampshire$510,937
- 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 4 Keene listings, and the typical home goes pending in 14 days — 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.
- Keene25.52%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Keene46
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Keene23
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Keene$370,178
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Keene address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Keene — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.