Cheshire

$3,227/year in estimated municipal tax on the median assessment

At $10.58 per $1,000 of assessed value (fiscal 2026). This applies that rate to the median single-family assessment from FY2026; it is a comparison scenario, not a current bill. Separate fire, water or other district levies, special assessments and individual exemptions are excluded. Confirm the property's full bill with the assessor. The tax rate year by year, with the bill history and every town in the county, is on its own page. The full worked figure, mortgage at this week's rate, heating, the lot, is on the cost page, and the calculator takes any price.

Utility gas is the most common heating fuel here, used by 34.8% of homes. A gas main serves at least part of the town. This week's prices and the season maths are on the heating page.

1,746 parcels; the median single-family home here was built in 1970, surviving stock, not construction history.1,539 housing units at the 2020 count (1,470 in 2000). 85.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied.

85.4% of homes here are single-family detached houses, and 30% of the housing stock predates 1940 while 3.2% went up in 2010 or later. Survey shares (2024), not counts.

8.5% of Homes Vacant at the Last Count

About 1 in 12 homes here stood empty at the April 2020 count, and 42% of those are seasonal or vacation homes.

≈36 sales a year

About 1 qualifying dwelling deed per 36 dwelling parcels is recorded in a year (2022–2024 average of recorded arm's-length deeds), at that pace, a property comes up roughly every 35 years. Steady-state arithmetic, not a measured wait, both counts cover dwelling property, and a deed can cover several parcels. The latest complete year's median sale: $269,000 (2024).

Estimated construction value in 2025: $1,749K (Census total including imputation, nominal dollars).

3 new homes were permitted in 2025 (the latest fully-reported year). County-wide, house prices moved up 1.06% in 2025 (Berkshire County index, a county figure, not this town's).

Schools Through Grade 12

Students here are covered from the early grades through high school by Adams-Cheshire (PK–12).

The district spends $20,302 per student. That is total spending per pupil, an input the state publishes, not a rating or a ranking of the schools.

2 school buildings stand in town. Which building a child attends is set by the district, not by the address alone.

• Hoosac Valley High School · 08, 09, 10, 11, 12 · public secondary
• Hoosac Valley Middle School · 04, 05, 06, 07 · public middle

Cable Internet: Spectrum

Cable internet serves this town. Franchise areas can stop at village edges, so confirm service at the specific address, not the town line.

Public water exists here: CHESHIRE WATER DEPT, HUTCHINSON WATER LLC, BERKSHIRE ESTATES, service areas have edges, so a specific address may still be on a well. No municipal sewer treatment is registered here, homes are on septic systems, which state law has inspected at sale. One privately run treatment works serves a site here (Pine Valley Mobile Home), which is neither town sewer nor a septic tank. Bedrock well yield potential in town is rated "average specific yield".

Mapped Flood Zones on the Older Map

This town has no current digital flood map, but the older FEMA paper map was digitised and it does show special flood hazard areas here. Treat it as a warning to check, not as a boundary: the paper map is less precise, carries no base flood elevations, and may be decades old. The town's floodplain administrator and the FEMA Map Service Center hold the answer for a specific address.

7 dams in town. 1 reported release site appear in the state's cleanup registry. Address-level detail, this parcel, this street, is on the address check.

Solar in the State's Record. 150 solar installations here have been through the Commonwealth's incentive programmes, and the 149 of them with a published rating come to at least 4.1 MW. 95% are on houses. The register runs to 2026: the older programmes closed to new applications and their successor only opened in 2025, so a gap after that is the incentive record ending, not the installing. 2 more are approved but not yet generating. Capacity is what an array is rated at, never what it produced.

Radon Potential: Zone 2. The rock under this town is rated zone 2, the middle of the three the survey uses. The rock underneath is the Taconic Mountains-Stockbridge Valley. That is a rating of geology, not a reading from any building: houses above the action level turn up in every zone, and houses in zone 1 routinely test clean. Radon is invisible, a test kit is the only thing that answers the question for a particular house, and it is worth doing whatever this map says.

7.3% of the recorded Massachusetts jobs held by town residents are in this town. Other leading Massachusetts job destinations are Pittsfield, North adams, Adams. The record includes 461 jobs in this town held by Massachusetts residents. These are 2022 job records, not a count of distinct workers. Interstate jobs are excluded, including commutes to or from Connecticut, New York and Vermont.

Recorded job destinations and nearby work centres: living near Adams (128 Massachusetts job records (2022), 11 min), living near Lanesborough (29 Massachusetts job records (2022), 11 min), living near Dalton (36 Massachusetts job records (2022), 18 min), living near North Adams (130 Massachusetts job records (2022), 19 min), living near Pittsfield (512 Massachusetts job records (2022), 20 min), living near New Ashford (22 min).

The average commute from here runs 29 minutes one way (working residents who leave home for work, 2024 5-year estimate). Walkability, where people live, scores 8.3 out of 20 on the EPA's index (below the national average).

BRTA runs fixed-route buses here: 4 stops in town, on one route. 1 · Pittsfield, North Adams.

$1,704/Month: HUD's Two-Bedroom Standard

HUD's fair-rent standard for a two-bedroom here is $1,704 a month, the figure housing vouchers are built on for the Pittsfield, MA HUD Metro FMR Area, not what landlords ask. It assumes rent plus most utilities, so it is not comparable to an advertised rent that excludes heat.

34.2% of households here fall below 80% of the area's median family income, the federal housing-programme measure of need, not a poverty rate. 0% of the town's year-round homes count toward the state's subsidized-housing inventory (the state threshold where override rules change is 10%).

21.2% of renters here spend a third or more of their income on housing (13.5% spend half or more); for owners it is 27.8%. The federal "cost-burdened" line is 30% of income; these are 5-year survey estimates (2024), not a headcount.

Winters average 26.1°F, summers 67.2°F, and about 85″ of snow a year

Thirty-year normals (1991–2020), not this year's weather. The year averages 47°F with 42.3″ of precipitation. Readings come from the nearest long-record weather station to each measure, so a hilltown reading a valley station will see less snow here than falls on its own ridges.

Between the 1960 and 2020 censuses, population grew 31.8%. Between 1971 and 1999, about 392 acres were developed. About 26.9% of adults here hold a bachelor's degree or higher (2024 survey). The deep story, the town's oldest surviving houses and what they're built in, is in the Old House Atlas.