Otis

$2,678/year in property tax on the median home

At $5.96 per $1,000 of assessed value (fiscal 2026). 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. No Gas Main serves the town, heating follows the delivered-fuel market. This week's prices and the season maths are on the heating page.

3,096 parcels; the median single-family home here was built in 1977, surviving stock, not construction history.1,609 housing units at the 2020 count (1,569 in 2000). 88.6% of occupied homes are owner-occupied.

97.5% of homes here are single-family detached houses, and 20% of the housing stock predates 1940 while 0.2% went up in 2010 or later. Survey shares (2023), not counts.

52% of Homes Vacant at the Last Count

More than half of the homes here stood empty at the April 2020 count, but 91.6% of those are seasonal or vacation homes. That is a second-home market, not an abandoned one.

≈43 sales a year

About 1 qualifying dwelling deed per 37 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 37 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: $402,500 (2024).

Estimated construction value in 2025: $200K (Census total including imputation, nominal dollars).

1 new home was permitted in 2025 (the Bureau's estimate; the town filed no monthly reports that year). County-wide, house prices moved up 1.06% in 2025 (Berkshire County index, a county figure, not this town's).

Younger Grades Local, Older Grades by Arrangement

The town's own schooling (Farmington River (PK–06)) stops before grade 12; older students attend Berkshire Hills, Lee (grades 7-12) under a tuition arrangement the town pays for. Every grade has a school, the question is where the bus goes.

The district spends $32,033 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.

• Farmington River Elementary School · PK, K, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06 · public elementary

Town-Built Fibre Internet

This town built its own fibre network, typically faster than cable, and run by the town or its light plant. The statewide cable map shows nothing here, which misleads: the town's own connection is the better one. Confirm service at the specific address before closing.

No community water system is registered in this town, homes are on private wells. Municipal sewer exists (OTIS WASTEWATER/SEWER); beyond its edge, homes are on septic. 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.

8 dams in town, 1 classed high hazard, a statement about what a failure would harm, not about condition or likelihood. 2 reported release sites 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. 50 solar installations here have been through the Commonwealth's incentive programmes, rated 451 kW between them. 96% are on houses. The register runs to 2023: 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 Berkshire Mountains. 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.

12.4% of working residents work right here in town. The rest most often head to Pittsfield, Sandisfield, Great barrington. The town itself hosts 337 jobs.

Where people here work: living near Monterey (1 already commute, 15 min), living near Tyringham (18 min), living near Sandisfield (42 already commute, 21 min), living near Lee (24 already commute, 22 min), living near Chester (1 already commute, 25 min), living near Great Barrington (40 already commute, 29 min), living near Sheffield (40 already commute, 37 min).

The average commute from here runs 33.8 minutes one way (working residents who leave home for work, 2023 5-year estimate). Walkability, where people live, scores 6 out of 20 on the EPA's index (below the national average).

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.

$1,709/Month: HUD's Two-Bedroom Standard

HUD's fair-rent standard for a two-bedroom here is $1,709 a month, the figure housing vouchers are built on for the Berkshire County, MA (part) 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.

30.2% 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%).

100% of renters here spend a third or more of their income on housing (18.8% spend half or more); for owners it is 16.2%. The federal "cost-burdened" line is 30% of income; these are 5-year survey estimates (2023), not a headcount.

Winters average 24.8°F, summers 67.3°F, and about 77″ of snow a year

Thirty-year normals (1991–2020), not this year's weather. The year averages 46.1°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.

Population is up 245.5% since 1960. Between 1971 and 1999, about 612 acres were developed. About 37.5% of adults here hold a bachelor's degree or higher (2023 survey). The deep story, the town's oldest surviving houses and what they're built in, is in the Old House Atlas.