Pull up any national portal and Conway looks like one market with one number. Redfin puts the median sale near $405K last month. Movoto's July 2026 list median reads $584K. Zillow's Home Value Index landed at $464,592 on June 30, 2026. Those figures aren't wrong, and they aren't measuring the same thing, but the spread between them is the story. Conway isn't a town in the way a buyer coming from a suburb thinks of a town. It's five villages plus a shared piece of Intervale, each with its own economy, and the number that predicts your monthly carrying cost is rarely the price band. It's which precinct's boundary the parcel sits inside.
The town median is an average of five different markets
There are five villages in the town: Conway, North Conway, Center Conway, Redstone and Kearsarge, and Conway also shares a portion of the village of Intervale with the neighboring town of Bartlett. They aren't neighborhoods in the residential-subdivision sense. They're separate historical settlements with separate commercial centers, separate housing stocks, and, importantly, separate utility districts layered on top.
Here's the mechanism most buyers miss. North Conway is a census-designated place and village in eastern Carroll County, and its population was 2,116 at the 2020 census. That population number matters less than what sits underneath it. Nearly a third of North Conway's housing stock, roughly 31.8% of 1,536 total units, was recorded as vacant at the 2020 census, and the vacancy is driven by vacation ownership rather than distress. When a third of the units in a village are second homes, the transactions that clear the market are priced against second-home buyers, not year-round wages. That's why a lender writing a DSCR file recently benchmarked a North Conway CDP purchase near $540,000 while cross-town workforce villages traded closer to the broader town median of $405,000.
Meanwhile, if you look at village-level data pulled by neighborhood-value research, median house prices in the Redstone area come in around $197,203. Same town. Same tax bill line on the top, very different acquisition basis.
The precinct overlay is a real line item, not a footnote
New Hampshire's Mount Washington Valley uses a governance pattern most out-of-state buyers have never encountered. Public drinking water isn't provided by the towns themselves but by municipal corporations called village districts and precincts, which are legally recognized political sub-governments of the State of New Hampshire with a narrowly defined scope focused on public drinking water, wastewater, and fire and rescue services, and your travels through the Valley may take you through no less than nine of these entities, each within an 8-mile radius of North Conway Village.
In practical terms, that means the water bill, the sewer connection, and part of the fire-service cost on a Conway address depend on which precinct the parcel belongs to. The North Conway Water Precinct provides water, wastewater, and fire services to portions of North Conway, Intervale, Kearsarge, and Bartlett. Buy a house four miles south of that boundary and you're on a private well, a private septic, and a different fire district. Fire protection to areas of town that are not within a precinct is provided through a contract between the Town of Conway, the Conway Village Fire Protection District, and the North Conway Water Precinct, and that service is funded through property tax revenues collected only from property that is not located within a precinct.
Two 2026 developments are worth pricing into your due diligence. First, as the Town of Conway moves toward municipal ambulance service in 2026, the Precinct and Town identified a solution where Precinct voters supported the Precinct purchasing two ambulances to be housed in the North Conway Fire Department. Second, Precinct water and sewer rates increased effective July 1, 2024, which was the first time rates had increased since 2016. Rate history matters because it tells you when the next adjustment is likely and how well the district budgets for capital work.
Then there's the Kearsarge corner. If a buyer is chasing view lots on the north side, they should know that the Kearsarge Lighting Precinct has its own zoning ordinance that a serious buyer reads before writing an offer, not after inspection. The 2025 Conway base tax rate sits at $11.54, per the town's published rate, but the effective rate on a parcel depends on which precincts stack on top.
What a mid-market budget actually buys, village by village
North Conway village
This is the commercial heart. There are a number of restaurants, two breweries, the year-round Cranmore Mountain Resort, over a hundred local and national stores, and several museums and theatres, and the Mount Washington Observatory's Weather Discovery Center in downtown North Conway provides interactive exhibits on Mount Washington. Housing runs from slopeside condos at Cranmore's base to Victorian-era singles walkable to Main Street. Expect to pay a second-home premium here. If your plan is a straight long-term rental, the coverage math is unforgiving because you're buying at a vacation basis and renting at a workforce rent.
Conway village
The year-round downtown, with the town offices at 23 Main Street and the Kancamagus Highway meeting Route 16 at its center. Housing skews to Capes, colonials, and ranches inside the Conway Village Fire District. Prices sit meaningfully below North Conway village for comparable square footage, and the tradeoff is proximity to Route 16 traffic during peak weekends.
Center Conway
Located toward the Maine border, Center Conway is Conway's oldest settlement. Larger lots, more agricultural feel, and the shortest drive to Fryeburg. Buyers who want elbow room without leaving the school district tend to land here. Wells and private septic dominate, so the inspection line items look different from a village-water address.
Redstone
Named for the red granite quarry, Redstone sits between Conway village and North Conway. It's the workforce backbone of the valley. A duplex or small multi-family here, modeled at 75% loan-to-value with two units at roughly $1,750 in monthly rent, produces a coverage ratio near 1.27x, which is a materially different lender file than the same capital deployed a mile north.
Kearsarge
Quiet, wooded, elevated. Buyers come here for slope and mountain views and stay for the removed pace. The Kearsarge Lighting Precinct's ordinance shapes exterior lighting, and, by extension, the character of what you can build. Read it before you fall in love with a lot.
The short-term rental question changes by village
This is where the last five years of Conway news matters. Short-term rentals are explicitly allowed in Conway, and this was confirmed by the New Hampshire Supreme Court in Town of Conway v. Kudrick (2022-0098, May 2, 2023), which ruled that under Conway's zoning ordinance definitions, short-term rentals are permitted in residential districts, with the court determining that it is the occupants' use of the property, not the duration of stay, that determines whether the property is being used for residential purposes. That ruling wasn't the end of the debate. On Feb. 13, 2025, the Conway Planning Board voted 4-3 to remove a proposed revision requiring owner occupancy from a warrant article, keeping the status quo of non-owner-occupied lodging houses in residential and commercial zones.
Operationally, buyers who intend to rent should account for the town's Chapter 72 housing and life-safety program. Under that ordinance, rental-property permits issued after inspection expire in the third year from issuance, renewals received within sixty days of expiration are assessed a late fee, and the Selectboard is authorized to adopt a schedule of fines not to exceed $1,000 for each offense. That's a real recurring cost and a real inspection risk that belongs in the pro forma, not the appendix. Local guidance from experienced valley operators also suggests confirming septic capacity and well status early, because occupancy caps often key off septic design more than bedroom count.
Transaction friction the town median won't tell you
- Two identical Capes on opposite sides of the North Conway Water Precinct boundary carry different utility structures and different fire-service funding. Confirm the precinct on the parcel card, not the mailing address.
- Wells and septic dominate Center Conway and much of Kearsarge. Budget for water-quality testing, flow tests, and septic pumping and inspection as separate line items, not as part of a general home inspection.
- Rental appraisals in North Conway CDP struggle because true long-term-lease comps are thin. If your loan is DSCR, anchor the file to a signed lease, not a market-rent projection.
- If the property is in a condo association, particularly near Cranmore, read the declaration and recent meeting minutes for rental caps and minimum-stay rules that may be more restrictive than the town ordinance.
- The 2025 town base tax rate of $11.54 is the starting point. Precinct assessments and any village-level lighting or fire district add to that. Ask the seller for a full 12-month tax bill, not just the annual assessment.
FAQ
Why do Zillow, Redfin, and Movoto disagree on Conway's median? They measure different things. Zillow's ZHVI is a modeled home-value index across the housing stock. Redfin's median sale price uses actual closed transactions in a rolling window. Movoto's median list price captures what's currently for sale. In a market split between workforce housing and second homes, those three inputs pull in different directions, and the spread widens.
Is North Conway a separate town? No. North Conway is a village within the town of Conway. It has its own post office, fire station, and public library, which is why buyers often think of it as separate. The tax bill still comes from the Town of Conway, adjusted for the precincts that serve the parcel.
Does the 2023 STR ruling mean any Conway house can be rented short-term? It means the current ordinance doesn't ban non-owner-occupied STRs in residential zones. That is not the same as no rules. Chapter 72 permitting, life-safety inspections, septic occupancy limits, and any condo or HOA restrictions still apply, and the town can amend the ordinance at a future meeting.
If you're weighing an offer in Conway and want the precinct-by-precinct read before you write, Saco Valley Real Estate is happy to walk the parcel with you. Start Your Local Search when you're ready, and bring your questions about the village lines. They're the part of this market that rewards asking early.
