Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Typical home $308,022 (+1.0% in a year), asking rent $1,545 (+2.9%). Pittsfield, MA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$939 (+138%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,958 +1%
- $305,064$308,022 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $76,088 +33%
- $231,933$308,022 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.
- Pittsfield$1,617
- 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 Pittsfield, MA rose 1.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Pittsfield, MA rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Pittsfield runs $741/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $850 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,286 a month against $1,545 rent: a $1,617 mortgage payment, plus $339 property tax and $330 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Pittsfield
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$2,286
- Renting$1,545
- Mortgage only$1,617
Property tax · $339/mo 1.32% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Berkshire County, MA
Insurance & upkeep · $330/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 Pittsfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts
Pittsfield is a city of 43,927 people in Berkshire County. Half its households earn more than $70,582 a year and half less, against $76,013 across Berkshire County; 15% of its people live below the poverty line. 63% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 37% are rented. Unemployment in Pittsfield was 4.0% in August 2026, and Berkshire County had 0.2% 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. Pittsfield is the city at the heart of Berkshire County, and it is one of the larger places in western Massachusetts. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though renters make up a real part of the city too. Incomes run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than is typical for a place with this many homeowners. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are mild and warm. Rain and melted snow fall in good measure through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, professional and business services, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment also employing a good number. Berkshire Medical Center, the Pittsfield school district and Berkshire County Arc are among the largest workplaces in the city. Unemployment is little changed from a year ago, and across Berkshire County the number of jobs slipped slightly last year. Commutes are short, and some people work from home.
Things to do. In and beside town, the Berkshire Museum, Arrowhead and Wahconah Park, a stadium, are all close at hand, and Silver Lake and the Housatonic River offer time by the water. Hancock Shaker Village, a museum, and October Mountain State Forest, a protected area, are each a short drive away. For a longer outing, the Norman Rockwell Museum is a longer drive away.
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- 19,510households
- 34%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Berkshire County had 57,806 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 58°. About 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Pittsfield Municipal Airport weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Pittsfield
- Berkshire Medical CenterGeneral hospital2,275FTE
- Pittsfield SchoolsSchool district944FTE
- Berkshire County ArcGroup homes, intellectual and developmental disability792
- General Dynamics Mission SystemsSearch, detection, navigation, guidance, aeronautical, and nautical systems and instrument manufacturing530
- THE Brien Center for Mental Health and Substance Abuse ServicesMental health centers and clinics, outpatient417
- General Dynamics Mission SystemsSearch, detection, navigation, guidance, aeronautical, and nautical systems and instrument manufacturing405
- Berkshire Community CollegeTwo-year college348
- GolubGrocery stores267
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 38 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,619 people in all. 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
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Pittsfield’s census tracts, 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 Berkshire County and the Pittsfield, MA metro.
Pittsfield home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Pittsfield$308,022
- Massachusetts$655,219
- 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 Pittsfield listings, and the typical home goes pending in 28 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.
- Pittsfield24.72%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Pittsfield28
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Pittsfield151
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Pittsfield51
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Pittsfield$303,082
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Pittsfield99.69%
Zip codes with a Pittsfield address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Pittsfield — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.