Wales, Massachusetts.
Typical home $352,366 (+5.4% in a year). Springfield, MA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,077 (+139%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $18,163 +5%
- $334,203$352,366 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $92,039 +35%
- $260,327$352,366 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.
- Wales$1,849
- Massachusetts$3,439
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Wales, MA rose 5.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Wales, Hampden County, Massachusetts
Wales is a town of 1,832 people in Hampden County. Half its households earn more than $89,006 a year and half less, against $71,306 across Hampden County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 89% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 11% are rented. Unemployment in Hampden County was 5.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Wales is a small town where nearly everyone owns the home they live in, and the population is somewhat older than in many places. Household incomes run well above the county's, and fewer residents live in poverty than you might expect for the region. A four-year degree is held by a smaller share of adults than in many towns, and winters here are cold and snowy, with warm summers and a good deal of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, the building trades, manufacturing, and banking, insurance and property. Many of the larger employers sit across Hampden County, among them Baystate Medical Center, Springfield Schools and Holyoke Medical Center. Commutes tend to be long, and a fair number of people work from home. Unemployment across the county is a little above where it stood a year ago, and the number of jobs has slipped slightly.
Things to do. Brimfield State Forest is in or beside town, a protected area for walking and time outdoors. A short drive away are the Quinebaug River and Bigelow Hollow State Park, another protected area with woods and water. For a longer outing, Six Flags New England is an amusement park a longer drive away.
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- 773households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 35 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hampden County had 201,216 jobs in 2025, 0.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 59°. About 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Staffordville weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Hampden County
- Baystate Medical CenterGeneral hospital6,945FTE
- Springfield SchoolsSchool district4,290FTE
- BMP - Baystate Medical PracticesPhysicians' offices2,187
- Springfield NDCMail and parcel delivery1,619
- Trinity Health of New EnglandMedical doctors', mental health, offices1,372
- Holyoke Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,273FTE
- Chicopee SchoolsSchool district1,253FTE
- Holyoke SchoolsSchool district994FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 405 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 60,376 people in all across the county; Wales has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Hampden 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 Hampden County and the Springfield, MA metro.
Wales home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Wales$352,366
- 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.
- Wales9
Zip codes with a Wales address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Wales — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.