New Salem, Massachusetts.
Typical home $404,132 (+4.4% in a year). Springfield, MA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,249 (+143%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,950 +4%
- $387,182$404,132 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $103,833 +35%
- $300,299$404,132 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.
- New Salem$2,121
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in New Salem, MA rose 4.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in New Salem, Franklin County, Massachusetts
New Salem is a town of 983 people in Franklin County. Half its households earn more than $79,688 a year and half less, against $74,907 across Franklin County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 89% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 11% are rented. Unemployment in Franklin County was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Franklin County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. New Salem is a very small hill town where residents are older than in most places and nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Household incomes run a little above the county's, and a good share of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm but not hot, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents tend to work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing and in professional and business services. Commutes are fairly ordinary, and a good number of people work from home. Across Franklin County, some of the largest workplaces are Baystate Franklin Medical Center, Greenfield Schools and Greenfield Community College.
Things to do. Much of what is close by is outdoors. Quabbin Reservoir, a large reservoir, is a short drive away, as is the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, a long-distance hiking trail. For a day out, the Emily Dickinson Museum is a longer drive away.
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- 437households
- 35%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 19%work from home
What people in Franklin County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Franklin County had 25,008 jobs in 2025, 1.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 33° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 60°. About 42 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Orange Municipal Airport weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Franklin County
- Baystate Franklin Medical CenterGeneral hospital490FTE
- Pelican ProductsAwnings, rigid plastics or fiberglass, manufacturing365
- Greenfield SchoolsSchool district284FTE
- Nourse Farms AcquisitionBerry farming282
- Greenfield Community CollegeTwo-year college279
- Judd WireRod, copper and copper alloy, made from purchased copper or in integrated secondary smelting and rolling, drawing or extruding plants266
- Mohawk Trail SchoolsSchool district202FTE
- Gill-Montague SchoolsSchool district196FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 56 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,475 people in all across the county; New Salem has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Franklin 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 Franklin County and the Springfield, MA metro.
New Salem home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- New Salem$404,132
- Massachusetts$655,219
- 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.
- New Salem6
Zip codes with a New Salem address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls New Salem — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.