Chester

$4,049/year in estimated municipal tax on the median assessment

At $18.06 per $1,000 of assessed value (fiscal 2026). This applies that rate to the median single-family assessment from FY2027; 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.

Most homes here heat with heating oil (50.4%). No Gas Main serves the town, heating follows the delivered-fuel market. Electricity is the town's own light plant. This week's prices and the season maths are on the heating page.

1,159 parcels; the median single-family home here was built in 1947, surviving stock, not construction history.622 housing units at the 2020 count (576 in 2000). 83.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied.

86.4% of homes here are single-family detached houses, and 44.8% of the housing stock predates 1940 while 2.9% went up in 2010 or later. Survey shares (2024), not counts.

14% of Homes Vacant at the Last Count

About 1 in 7 homes here stood empty at the April 2020 count, but 55.2% of those are seasonal or vacation homes. That is a second-home market, not an abandoned one.

≈15 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: $262,500 (2024).

Estimated construction value in 2025: $336K (Census total including imputation, nominal dollars).

1 new home was permitted in 2025 (the latest fully-reported year). County-wide, house prices moved up 5.27% in 2025 (Hampden 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 Gateway (PK–12).

The district spends $24,620 per student. That is total spending per pupil, an input the state publishes, not a rating or a ranking of the schools.

1 school building stands in town. Which building a child attends is set by the district, not by the address alone.

• Chester Elementary School · PK, K, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05 · public elementary

Cable Internet: Comcast

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: CHESTER WATER DEPT, 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. Bedrock well yield potential in town is rated "average specific yield".

Mapped Flood Zones Present

Parts of this town are inside mapped special flood hazard areas, where flood insurance is required for most mortgages and building is regulated. Whether a specific property is inside one is a parcel-level question, check the address, not the town.

3 dams in town. 1 reported release site appear in the state's cleanup registry. 1 facility reports to the EPA Toxics Release Inventory, industrial sites above federal reporting thresholds, absence of which is not proof of none. Address-level detail, this parcel, this street, is on the address check.

Solar in the State's Record. 6 solar installations here have been through the Commonwealth's incentive programmes, rated 6.0 MW between them. 83% are on houses. The register runs to 2021: 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. 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 Western Connecticut Valley Belt. 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.

Facilities here reported 228,278 lbs of TRI-listed chemicals released to air, water and land in 1988, down from a peak of 599,490 lbs in 1987. The most-released over the years has been aluminum oxide. Self-reported by facilities above federal thresholds, a disclosure record, not a measure of anyone's exposure or risk.

2.4% of the recorded Massachusetts jobs held by town residents are in this town. Other leading Massachusetts job destinations are Westfield, Springfield, Northampton. The record includes 102 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 Huntington (18 Massachusetts job records (2022), 13 min), living near Middlefield (2 Massachusetts job records (2022), 18 min), living near Becket (21 min), living near Montgomery (1 Massachusetts job records (2022), 23 min), living near Russell (2 Massachusetts job records (2022), 24 min), living near Blandford (30 Massachusetts job records (2022), 25 min), living near Otis (16 Massachusetts job records (2022), 25 min).

The average commute from here runs 31.8 minutes one way (working residents who leave home for work, 2024 5-year estimate). Walkability, where people live, scores 3 out of 20 on the EPA's index (least walkable).

No fixed-route bus stops in town. All three regional transit authorities' schedules were checked; dial-a-ride and paratransit services do not appear in them.

$1,800/Month: HUD's Two-Bedroom Standard

HUD's fair-rent standard for a two-bedroom here is $1,800 a month, the figure housing vouchers are built on for the Springfield, MA MSA, not what landlords ask. It assumes rent plus most utilities, so it is not comparable to an advertised rent that excludes heat.

36% 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%).

54.1% of renters here spend a third or more of their income on housing (3.5% spend half or more); for owners it is 22.9%. The federal "cost-burdened" line is 30% of income; these are 5-year survey estimates (2024), not a headcount.

Winters average 24.3°F, summers 65.8°F, and about 77″ of snow a year

Thirty-year normals (1991–2020), not this year's weather. The year averages 45.3°F with 52.33″ 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 6.3%. Between 1971 and 1999, about 199 acres were developed. About 27.3% 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.