Hampshire County · 34.38 square miles
Ware
The town record: taxes, homes, schools, water, flood, commute and the market, every figure from a named public source.
LATESTSources checked 2026-11-02 · 21 named public bodies · each figure above states its own period
The Record in Brief
Ware's residential property tax rate is $14.49 per $1,000 of assessed value for fiscal 2026, a municipal-tax illustration of $4,513 a year on the town's median single-family assessment, assessed at $311,450. Rates are set by the town and reported to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue.
The median recorded single-family sale in Ware was $300,000 in 2024, across 102 recorded arm's-length deeds, from the Massachusetts standardized assessors' parcel layer published by MassGIS.
Ware had a population of 10,066 at the 2020 decennial census, published by the U.S. Census Bureau, up 2% on 2010.
Parts of Ware lie inside mapped special flood hazard areas, where most mortgages require flood insurance. Whether a given property is inside one is a parcel-level question. Mapping is published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Every figure below states the period it covers and the body that publishes it. Full sourcing: sources and method.
What Does It Cost to Live Here?
$4,513/year in estimated municipal tax on the median assessment
At $14.49 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.
Median household income, survey by survey
$67,4755-year estimate ending 2024 · overlapping windows, not annual readings
The average single-family tax bill, FY1988 to FY2026
$4,770FY2026 average · the figure above is the median home, this line is the DLS average
What Does It Cost to Heat?
Heating oil is the most common heating fuel here, used by 49.8% of homes. 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.
What Kind of Homes Are Here?
4,580 parcels; the median single-family home here was built in 1971, surviving stock, not construction history.4,755 housing units at the 2020 count (4,337 in 2000). 65.8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied.
56.6% of homes here are single-family detached houses, and 37.2% of the housing stock predates 1940 while 4.9% went up in 2010 or later. Survey shares (2024), not counts.
9.1% of Homes Vacant at the Last Count
About 1 in 11 homes here stood empty at the April 2020 count, and 18.4% of those are seasonal or vacation homes.
≈99 sales a year
About 1 qualifying dwelling deed per 32 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 33 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: $300,000 (2024).
New homes permitted, year by year, since 1980
81units permitted in 2025, 0 months reported · permission to build, not completions
Estimated construction value in 2025: $10,254K (Census total including imputation, nominal dollars).
Median recorded sale, quarter by quarter
$227,5252026 Q2, on 21 sales · small quarters swing hard
81 new homes were permitted in 2025 (the Bureau's estimate; the town filed no monthly reports that year). County-wide, house prices moved up 6.04% in 2025 (Hampshire County index, a county figure, not this town's).
What homes actually sold for in Ware, quarter by quarter, with the sale count behind every median.
Where Do Kids Go to School?
Schools Through Grade 12
Students here are covered from the early grades through high school by Ware (PK–12).
The schools page carries every district serving Ware, where the buildings are, and what each district spends per pupil.
The district spends $19,436 per student. That is total spending per pupil, an input the state publishes, not a rating or a ranking of the schools.
Vocational option: Pathfinder RVT (grades 9–12), admission has its own application, and member towns differ on transport.
Charter schools whose region includes this town: Hilltown Cooperative Charter Public School, Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School. Eligibility to apply, not a placement, admission is by lottery.
3 school buildings stand in town. Which building a child attends is set by the district, not by the address alone.
- Stanley M Koziol Elementary School · PK, K, 01, 02, 03 · public elementary
- Ware Junior/Senior High School · 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12 · public secondary
- Ware Middle School · 04, 05, 06 · public middle
How's the Internet?
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.
92.4% of households here subscribe to broadband, per the Census Bureau's rolling five-year survey, the ground truth against any coverage map.
Water, Sewer, or Septic?
Public water exists here: WARE WATER DEPT, QUABBIN SUNRISE COOPERATIVE INC, service areas have edges, so a specific address may still be on a well. Municipal sewer exists (WARE SEWER DEPT); beyond its edge, homes are on septic. Bedrock well yield potential in town is rated "average specific yield".
Will It Flood? Anything Nasty Nearby?
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.
The flood page carries the mapping status, wetlands, dams and cleanup sites for Ware, with every town in the county.
19 dams in town, 2 classed high hazard, a statement about what a failure would harm, not about condition or likelihood. 5 reported release sites appear in the state's cleanup registry. 3 facilities report 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. 290 solar installations here have been through the Commonwealth's incentive programmes, and the 287 of them with a published rating come to at least 16.7 MW. 94% are on houses. The register runs to 2025: 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. 4 more are approved but not yet generating. Capacity is what an array is rated at, never what it produced.
Radon Potential: Zone 1. The rock under this town is rated zone 1, the highest of the three the survey uses. The town sits across more than one geologic belt (Merrimack Belt, Gneissic Domes), so this is the highest potential found under any part of it, not an average. 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.
The USGS runs 2 stream gauges in town with live river levels: WARE RIVER AT GIBBS CROSSING, SWIFT RIVER AT WEST WARE.
Facilities here reported 506 lbs of TRI-listed chemicals released to air, water and land in 2024, down from a peak of 27,500 lbs in 1989. The most-released over the years has been hydrochloric acid. Self-reported by facilities above federal thresholds, a disclosure record, not a measure of anyone's exposure or risk.
TRI-listed chemical releases here, year by year
506 lbsreported released in 2024 · on- and off-site, self-reported, not an exposure measure
What's the Commute Like?
16.6% of the recorded Massachusetts jobs held by town residents are in this town. Other leading Massachusetts job destinations are Springfield, Palmer, Amherst. The record includes 2,641 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 Belchertown (133 Massachusetts job records (2022), 17 min), living near Palmer (296 Massachusetts job records (2022), 19 min), living near Brimfield (16 Massachusetts job records (2022), 23 min), living near Monson (47 Massachusetts job records (2022), 27 min), living near Ludlow (88 Massachusetts job records (2022), 30 min), living near Amherst (159 Massachusetts job records (2022), 34 min), living near Springfield (513 Massachusetts job records (2022), 41 min), living near Worcester (93 Massachusetts job records (2022), 54 min), living near Boston (111 Massachusetts job records (2022), 101 min).
The average commute from here runs 28.4 minutes one way (working residents who leave home for work, 2024 5-year estimate). Walkability, where people live, scores 6.4 out of 20 on the EPA's index (below the national average).
PVTA runs fixed-route buses here: 8 stops in town, on 3 routes. B49 · Holyoke-Ware; B79 · Amherst-Worcester Intercity Service; WS · Ware Shuttle.
What Do Rentals Go For?
$2,034/Month: HUD's Two-Bedroom Standard
HUD's fair-rent standard for a two-bedroom here is $2,034 a month, the figure housing vouchers are built on for the Amherst Town-Northampton, MA MSA, not what landlords ask. It assumes rent plus most utilities, so it is not comparable to an advertised rent that excludes heat.
What tenants here actually pay, survey by survey
$1,043/monthmedian gross rent, 5-year estimate ending 2024 · rent plus utilities, what sitting tenants pay, not asking rents
48.2% of households here fall below 80% of the area's median family income, the federal housing-programme measure of need, not a poverty rate. 7.76% of the town's year-round homes count toward the state's subsidized-housing inventory (the state threshold where override rules change is 10%).
64.3% of renters here spend a third or more of their income on housing (30.9% spend half or more); for owners it is 25.2%. The federal "cost-burdened" line is 30% of income; these are 5-year survey estimates (2024), not a headcount.
What Are the Winters Like?
Winters average 26.4°F, summers 68.5°F, and about 43″ of snow a year
Thirty-year normals (1991–2020), not this year's weather. The year averages 47.7°F with 48.62″ 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.
Temperature: BELCHERTOWN, MA US (5.7 mi). Snow: WARE, MA US (0.4 mi).
Growing or Shrinking?
Between the 1960 and 2020 censuses, population grew 33.9%. Between 1971 and 1999, about 1,191 acres were developed. About 24% 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.
People in Ware, every published figure
10,1282025 estimate · hover the line for any year
Everything taxable in town, at full value, since 1970
$1.14B2024 equalized valuation, the Commissioner's biennial full-value figure
The town's certified reserves, year by year, since 2004
$3Mcertified free cash as of 1 July 2023 · audited spendable reserves, not a budget
Free cash is what the state certifies a town may actually spend from its reserves once receivables and deficits are taken out. It is the closest public measure of municipal cushion, and it is why one town absorbs a bad winter or a failed roof without an override while its neighbour cannot.
State aid, net of what the state charges back, since 2010
$16Mnet cherry sheet aid, fiscal 2027, the Commonwealth's published estimate for a year not yet settled
The cherry sheet is the Commonwealth's annual notice of what it will send the town and what it will charge back. In fiscal 2027 that is $18M in aid against $2M in assessments, of which $15M of the aid is school aid. It is the half of a town's budget the property tax does not explain, which is why two towns with the same rate can be in very different shape.
Next door different? Put Ware beside any of the other 100 towns.
Compare Side by Side →Cite this page: RE413, “Ware Town Record,” https://www.re413.com/towns/ware-ma/.
From the Desk
Reporting on Ware and the wider region.
Nearby Towns
The same record for each, with its own residential rate.
Or put two side by side in the Ware comparison tool, see what the tax bill would be in every town, or read the state of housing across all 101.
Sources
- Massachusetts DLS Municipal Databank. Tax rates (fiscal 2026) and the municipal-tax illustration using the median assessment (fiscal 2027), the average single-family bill back to FY1988, and the equalized valuation back to 1970, plus certified free cash (the town's audited spendable reserves) back to 2003.
- Massachusetts DLS Cherry Sheets. State aid received and state and county assessments charged, per year from 2010; the newest year is the Commonwealth's published estimate for a fiscal year not yet settled.
- MassGIS standardized parcels. Parcel counts, building ages, lot sizes, and the recorded sales behind the turnover figure and the quarter-by-quarter median.
- U.S. Census Bureau. Population (decennial counts 1960–2020, annual estimates to 2024), housing units, vacancy with its seasonal share, tenure, heating fuels, commute flows, and permitted units per year back to 1980 from the Building Permits Survey.
- PVTA, BRTA and FRTA schedules. Fixed-route bus stops and routes in town; zero means checked against all three and none found.
- EPA National Walkability Index. The population-weighted walkability score, block groups rolled up to the town.
- U.S. Energy Information Administration. This week's heating-oil and propane prices and the state electricity average. Figures through 2026-10-26.
- FHFA house-price index. The county-level annual price change, a county figure, never this town's. Figures through 2025.
- Massachusetts DESE registries. Which districts operate here, their grade spans and tuition arrangements.
- MassGIS PK-12 school locations. The school buildings that physically stand in this town, with the grades each serves and its type. Locations, never ratings.
- DESE Per Pupil Expenditures report. Total per-pupil spending for the town's operating district(s), a published input, not a rating.
- MassGIS utility registry and municipal fibre programmes. Cable franchise, town fibre and the electric utility.
- MassDEP and USGS. Water systems, sewer service and well-yield mapping.
- FEMA flood layer, the Office of Dam Safety and the MassDEP release registry. Flood mapping status, dam hazard classes and cleanup-registry counts.
- U.S. Geological Survey NWIS. Active stream gauges (with their live-data pages) and groundwater wells monitored in town.
- EPA Toxics Release Inventory (Envirofacts). The count of active facilities in town that report to the TRI.
- EPA TRI Basic Data Files (1987 to present). Reported pounds of TRI-listed chemicals released on- and off-site per year, the trend line and its peak, placed by facility coordinate.
- HUD and the state subsidized housing inventory. The fair-market rent standard and the Chapter 40B share.
- American Community Survey 5-year estimates. The income and rent lines, one point per survey vintage since 2009; each point pools five years ending in its label.
- American Community Survey, tables B25091 & B25070. The share of owners and renters spending 30%+ and 50%+ of income on housing.
- American Community Survey, tables B08013/B08303, B25034, B15003, B25024. Mean commute time, housing-age and structure-type shares, and the bachelor's-degree share.
- MassGIS land use. Acres developed between the 1971 and 1999 surveys.
- NOAA 1991-2020 U.S. Climate Normals. Winter, summer and annual temperature, snowfall and precipitation, from the nearest reporting station to each measure.
"Figures through" is the period the publisher's data describes; "checked" is only when we last asked. The full sourcing: sources and method.