Salem, New Hampshire.
Typical home $606,229 (+2.9% in a year), asking rent $2,561 (+1.4%). Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,847 (+138%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,835 +3%
- $589,394$606,229 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $154,616 +34%
- $451,613$606,229 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.
- Salem$3,182
- New Hampshire$2,682
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Salem, NH rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Salem, NH rose 1.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Salem runs $2,066/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $4,627 a month against $2,561 rent: a $3,182 mortgage payment, plus $796 property tax and $649 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Salem
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$4,627
- Renting$2,561
- Mortgage only$3,182
Property tax · $796/mo 1.58% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Rockingham County, NH
Insurance & upkeep · $649/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 Salem, Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Salem is a town of 30,089 people in Rockingham County. Half its households earn more than $110,490 a year and half less, against $118,331 across Rockingham County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 76% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 24% 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 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. Salem is a town in Rockingham County, in southern New Hampshire. Residents are a little older than in many places, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run somewhat below the county's, and typical home values and rents are high. Winters are cold and the summers warm, with rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in professional and business services, manufacturing and shops. Among the largest workplaces in Salem are the Salem School District, Northeast Rehabilitation Hospital and Walmart. Commutes are fairly long, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. Canobie Lake Park, an amusement park, is in or beside town, and the Spicket River also runs through or beside it. A short drive away are America's Stonehenge, an archaeological site, and the Shawsheen River. For museums, the Harvard Art Museums are a longer drive away.
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- 12,618households
- 39%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 29 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 35° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 65°. About 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lawrence weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Salem
- Salem School DistrictSchool district752FTE
- Northeast Rehabilitation HospitalRehabilitation hospital653FTE
- Demoulas Super Markets468
- New England Finish SystemsDrywall contractors416
- Demoulas Super Markets406
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters369
- Select Demo ServicesBuilding demolition350
- TargetDiscount department stores254
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 56 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,063 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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.
Salem home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Salem$606,229
- 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 3 Salem listings, and the typical home goes pending in 11 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.
- Salem30.65%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Salem11
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Salem65
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Salem29
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Salem$596,384
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Salem102.24%
Zip codes with a Salem address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Salem — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.