RE413 News
Property Reporting for Western Massachusetts
What a house here costs to buy, to hold, to heat and to insure, reported from the public record. Every figure states the period it covers and the body that publishes it.
Rail Trails in Western Mass: Every Named Trail and What Kind It Is
Half of what gets counted as bike infrastructure here is a painted lane on a road. The traffic-free trails are a much shorter and more specific list.
Condos and Multi-Family Homes in Western Mass: Which Towns Have Them
The single-family share of housing runs from a third in one town to everything in another. In much of this region what you are looking for does not exist.
Hospitals in Western Mass: How Far Is the Nearest One From Your Town
Ten acute care hospitals serve 101 towns. From some of them the drive is long enough that it belongs in a buying decision rather than an afterthought.
Does Western Mass Get Natural Disasters? What the Federal Index Says
The federal index scores eighteen hazards and puts a dollar figure on each. Here, one of them accounts for seven out of every ten dollars of expected loss.
Is Western Mass Losing Its Farmland? What the Last Full Survey Showed
Between 1971 and 1999 the region converted cropland and pasture acre by acre. Nobody has repeated the survey since, which is a finding in its own right.
What Salary Do You Need to Buy a House in Western Mass?
We ran the median home, the real tax bill and the current rate for all 101 towns. In most of them the answer is above what households there actually earn.
What Is the Coldest Town in Western Mass? Winter Averages for All 101
Nineteen weather stations cover 101 towns, so the figure published for yours was probably measured somewhere else. Elevation explains what the map cannot.
Which Western Mass Towns Have Natural Gas? All 101 Checked
Only 39 towns have a gas main at all. In the other 62 the choice is delivered oil, propane or electric, and it is made for you before you move in.
Electric Companies in Western Mass: Who Serves Your Town
Six towns own their power utility outright. The rest buy from one of two investor-owned companies, and which one you get is decided by the town line.
Your Town Does Not Live on Your Property Tax Alone. Here Is the Rest.
State aid sends more than a billion dollars a year to these 101 towns, and the share it covers ranges from almost everything to almost nothing.
What Do Jobs Pay in Western Mass? Wages by County and Industry
Average weekly pay differs by hundreds of dollars across four adjoining counties. That gap is the reason the housing markets diverged the way they did.
Sewer or Septic? What Every Western Mass Town Actually Has
Most towns here run no municipal sewer at all. A septic system is a component you own, it fails eventually, and Title 5 decides what happens at sale.
Amherst or Northampton? What the Numbers Say About Living in Each
Two college towns eight miles apart that people treat as interchangeable. On tax, house size, housing age and what a bill comes to, they are not close.
Living Near a Factory in Western Mass: What the Pollution Record Shows
Reported chemical releases across the region fell by most of their 1987 volume. What that means for a house near an old plant is a different question.
How Old Are the Houses Here? Median Year Built in All 101 Towns
The median house ranges from 1925 in one town to 1988 in another. Age decides insulation, wiring, water service and what an inspection is going to find.
How Big Is a House in Western Mass? Square Footage and Lot Size by Town
The median single-family home runs from 1,200 square feet to 2,587, and the lot under it varies by a factor of thirty across towns in the same county.
Where People in Your Town Actually Go to Work
In the median town here, about seven percent of working residents have a job in the town they live in. The commute map decides which towns are options.
Why Is Western Mass Losing Population? Sixty Years, Town by Town
The short answer is that it is not. The region has more people than in 1960. What moved is where they live, and the mill cities took the whole of the loss.
The Towns Where Most Houses Are Empty on a Tuesday
In a handful of towns here, the majority of housing counted as vacant is somebody's weekend place. It moves prices, tax rates and what is left to buy.
What Rent Should Cost in Western Mass, According to the Federal Government
HUD publishes a rent figure for all 101 towns, but sets it across only five areas. Your town's number is shared with dozens of others, which matters.
Who Is Actually Stretched: Owners and Renters Compared, Town by Town
In the median town here, half of renting households spend 30% or more of income on housing. For owners the figure is a quarter, and the gap is the story.
Your Old House Might Be on a State List. Here Is What That Does
More than 40,000 properties here sit in the state's historic inventory. Being listed imposes nothing by itself, and the thing that does is a town bylaw.
There Are 823 Dams in Western Mass and Nobody Has Classified Half of Them
Ninety-nine are rated high hazard, which describes what a failure would do and not how likely one is. The most common classification of all is none at all.
Flood Insurance in Western Mass: What Claims Data Says You Need
A quarter of paid flood claims here came from properties rated outside the high-risk zone. The map tells you your premium, not whether your house floods.
What a 21E Site Actually Means When It Is Near a House You Want
Springfield alone has 65 entries in the state cleanup registry. Being listed means a release was reported, not that it remains, and the difference matters.
Can You Live in Western Mass Without a Car? The Honest Answer
Not one town here reaches the top band of the federal walkability index, and 49 of the 101 have no fixed-route bus stop at all. The exceptions are specific.
Mortgage Rates Since 1971: What a Home Loan Has Actually Cost
The 30-year rate has been under 3% and over 18%, and both were within one working lifetime. Here is what each level did to the payment on the same house.
Towns Near Northampton: What Every Option Within an Hour Costs
Drive time, median home, annual tax, schools and broadband for every town inside a real commute of Northampton, with the price spread laid out in one table.
Which Western Mass Towns Are Growing, and Which Are Not
Ninety of the 101 towns are bigger than they were in 1960. The decline story everyone repeats is really about five cities, and one hill town grew 548%.
Moving to the Berkshires: What the Numbers Say Before You Fall for It
The county everyone calls cheap and rural has the highest median home value of the four here, and in some towns most of the housing is empty on a Tuesday.
Buying Land in Western Mass: Can You Actually Build on It?
Cheap acreage is cheap for reasons that are mapped and checkable. Slope, soil, wetland and water decide whether a lot is a house site or a very large garden.
Chapter 40B Explained: What It Means If Your Town Is Below 10%
Twelve of the 101 towns hold safe harbour. The other 89 can face a permit that overrides their own zoning, and most residents have no idea until it happens.
Western Mass School Districts: Which Towns Send Their Teenagers Elsewhere
Fourteen towns here do not run a high school and tuition older students out. Per-pupil spending ranges from $15,610 to $32,033, and neither is a rating.
How Much Snow Does Western Mass Get? Every Town's Winter, Measured
Snowfall ranges from 36 inches a year to 85 across towns forty miles apart, and average winter temperature swings eight degrees. Elevation does the work.
Commuting to Boston from Western Mass: Who Actually Does It, and From Where
Nearly 1,800 people commute from Springfield to Boston. The nearest western town is 82 minutes away in free-flowing traffic, which is not what you will get.
Internet in Rural Western Mass: Which Towns Built Their Own Fibre
Twenty-one towns here gave up waiting for a cable company and built municipal fibre themselves. Broadband take-up still ranges from 78% to nearly all.
Town Water or a Well? Sewer or Septic? Every Western Mass Town
Thirty-one towns have no community water system and forty-nine have no municipal sewer. If you are buying here, the odds are you are buying a well.
Buying an Old House in Western Mass: What to Check Before You Fall in Love
The median home in one town here was built in 1925. Antique houses are the regional norm, not a novelty, and they fail in predictable and expensive ways.
How Massachusetts Property Taxes Are Assessed, and Why Yours Went Up
Your bill moved and the rate did not. That is normal, it is not a mistake, and understanding why is the difference between appealing and wasting a morning.
The Cost of Living in Western Mass, 2026: What a Year Actually Costs
Tax, heat and the mortgage on one median home, town by town. The gap between the cheapest and the dearest town here runs to five figures every year.
Renting in Western Mass: What It Costs and How Many People Are Stretched
In the median town, half of renters spend a third or more of their income on housing. For owners the same figure is a quarter. That gap decides a lot.
Living Near Springfield: What 38 Towns Within an Hour Actually Cost
Drive time, median price, annual tax bill, schools and broadband for every town inside a real 50-minute commute. The spread is over $700,000 wide.
New Construction in Western Mass: Which Towns Are Actually Building
The permit number everyone quotes fell from 3,668 units to twelve. Almost none of that is a construction collapse, and the real reason matters more.
Moving to Western Mass in 2026: Where People Come From and What They Earn
One county lost people and gained $30.8 million doing it. Another lost people and $138.6 million with them. Which market you enter changes everything.
Should You Buy Now? What 50 Years of Western Mass Prices Say About Timing
Prices are up 57 to 67% since 2019. Before calling that a bubble, look at what the bust nobody talks about actually did to this region for a decade.
What $400,000 Buys in Each of the 101 Western Mass Towns
The same money buys a median home outright in Franklin County and a third of one in Alford. It also carries a tax bill that varies by $530 a month.
Oil vs Heat Pump in Western Mass: What a Winter Costs in 2026
The gap between them is the widest on record. Do not take that as settled: the two have crossed over 31 separate times since 2001, and oil often won.
Is Your Town in a Flood Zone? Western Mass Flood Maps, Town by Town
Forty-eight of the 101 towns have no digitised federal flood map at all. That is an absence of information, and buyers read it as the opposite of one.
Average Home Prices in Western Mass by Town, 2026
From $146,400 in Monroe to $1,066,450 in Alford. And the county everyone calls the cheap rural one turns out to have the highest median of the four.
Property Taxes in Western Mass: Every Town's 2026 Rate and Real Bill
Rates run from $2.18 per $1,000 to $20.50, a nine-fold spread across one region. But the rate is not the bill, and the two lists are not the same list.
Who Writes What
RE413 bylines are pen names for the desk. Why, and what that does and does not mean.