Nelson, New Hampshire.
Typical home $469,327 (+0.3% in a year). Keene, NH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,467 (+147%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,312 +0%
- $468,015$469,327 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $117,890 +34%
- $351,437$469,327 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.
- Nelson$2,463
- 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 Nelson, NH rose 0.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Nelson, Cheshire County, New Hampshire
Nelson is a town of 629 people in Cheshire County. Half its households earn more than $99,792 a year and half less, against $83,329 across Cheshire County; 1% of its people live below the poverty line. 90% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 10% are rented. Unemployment in Cheshire County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Nelson is a very small town in Cheshire County, and nearly everyone who lives there owns their home. Household incomes run higher than across the county, hardly any residents live below the poverty line, and most adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold and snowy, summers are warm, and precipitation is steady through the year.
Work. Residents work in manufacturing, professional and business services, schools, hospitals and social care, and the building trades. Many people work from home, and those who commute have a fairly short drive. Across Cheshire County, some of the largest workplaces are Cheshire Medical Center, Keene State College and Keene School District.
Things to do. Water is close at hand: Granite Lake, a reservoir, and Silver Lake both lie in or beside town. A short drive away are Granite Gorge Ski Area for winter days and Skatutakee Lake for time on the water. Farther afield, Rhododendron State Park, a botanical garden, is a longer drive away.
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- 255households
- 61%of adults have a degree
- 1%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 32%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, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cheshire County
- EMD MilliporeLaboratory analytical instruments manufacturing989
- Cheshire Medical CenterGeneral hospital737FTE
- Keene State CollegeUniversity or college619
- Franklin Pierce UniversityUniversity or college608
- Keene School DistrictSchool district606FTE
- CS Wholesale Grocers : Keene - Corporate Dr470
- CS Wholesale Grocers : Keene - Optical Ave412
- Dartmouth Hitchcock KeenePhysicians' offices411
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 83 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,030 people in all across the county; Nelson has none of its own. 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 moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Cheshire County, 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.
Nelson home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Nelson$469,327
- 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.
- Nelson6
Zip codes with a Nelson address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Nelson — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.