"Caution: Don't multiply your new assessment by the current tax rate!" That line appeared in the Town Manager's report at the August 12, 2026 Bedford Town Council meeting, just after preliminary revaluation notices went out. The warning was for owners looking at new assessments. Buyers make a similar mistake in the other direction. They see Bedford's 2026 rate fall from $16.49 to $14.73 per $1,000 and conclude the town got cheaper to own in.

The rate fell because property values rose faster than the money the town needed to raise. Once you see that, the important question for any Bedford house is how far its assessment moved compared with the rest of the town. For many single-family homes, it moved far enough to push the 2026 bill up despite the lower rate.

Every Part of the Rate Fell, and the Town Still Raised More

The New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration set Bedford's 2026 rate on October 20, 2026. Compare it line by line with the 2025 rate sheet and every component went down.

The bottom two rows explain the top five. According to DRA's 2026 completed-rates table, Bedford's taxable valuation rose about 19.0% while the total amount raised rose about 6.1%. Spreading a 6% larger total across a 19% larger base produces a rate about 10.7% lower. The new rate tells you about the size of the base and very little about whether any one owner is paying less.

The revaluation caused that 19% jump. Bedford last revalued in 2023, and the council chose in early 2025 to postpone the next one to 2026 because assessments were still close enough to market value. Preliminary values went to owners the week of August 3, 2026, and the town's online assessment database now shows them.

The Median Bedford Home

The Union Leader reported that the median single-family assessment went from $678,400 in 2025 to $807,500 in 2026, a gain of about 19%. Multiplying each assessment by its year's rate:

• 2025: $678,400 at $16.49 per $1,000 comes to about $11,187
• 2026: $807,500 at $14.73 per $1,000 comes to about $11,894

That is roughly $707 more, or about 6.3%, for a home sitting at the median. These are calculations from published assessments and rates, not actual bills. Any single house can land above or below the median, and exemptions or credits change what a particular owner pays.

Assessment Changes by Property Type

The headline residential figure covers a lot of variation. In the same Union Leader coverage, Chief Assessor Doug Irvine broke the changes out by type. Applying the 2026 rate to each of those changes shows how the tax share moved:

The biggest increases went to antique homes and ranches, two of Bedford's older and often smaller housing styles. These categories had the furthest to catch up.

Irvine called apartments "the big story at a 19% increase" and noted that the figure is "very much mirroring" the overall residential pattern. The reported apartment assessment increase was about the same as the median single-family increase.

The council presentation also included commercial subgroup changes of 34%, 23% and 19%. The September 9, 2026 council minutes record the assessor explaining that these were medians for specific subsets. They do not describe the commercial base as a whole, which rose 12%.

Commercial Landed Near Even This Time

The 2026 commercial increase was 12%, making 2026 very different from 2023. In the February 2025 council minutes, Irvine said the average residential property rose 28 to 30% in the 2023 revaluation while the average commercial property rose 4 to 5%. As a result, "the average tax bill for a residential property went up 10 percent while the average tax bill for commercial property fell by that same amount."

In that meeting he described a revaluation as dividing a pie, where the pie is the town budget: "here's your piece of that pie that you're responsible for eating." He also offered a hypothetical in which condos rise 3% and colonials rise 12%, calling the result a "reapportionment of the tax burden."

The 2026 numbers follow that pattern on a smaller scale. Residential rose 18% and commercial 12%, a far smaller gap than in 2023, so less of the tax share moved between homes and businesses. Most of this year's movement happened among homes. The Town Manager's report put it this way: "Not nearly the delta they were seeing three years ago between residential and commercial." Residential carries most of the weight in any case. The Union Leader reported that over 80% of Bedford's valuation comes from residential property, under 12% from commercial and 3.53% from industrial parcels, across 8,367 parcels.

Same Street, Two Price Points

Bedford's housing is not one market. According to the Union Leader, the town has about a dozen traditional neighborhoods, and their median sale prices ranged from $527,500 to nearly $2 million in the revaluation data.

Irvine used Barrington Drive as an example. The older phase has older, smaller homes. Further along, the street becomes "more of a parkway, a boulevard with a grass and tree strip in the middle" and turns distinctly higher-end. "They're two different distinct neighborhoods on the same street," he said.

A Bedford address alone tells you little about how a home's assessment moved in 2026.

Assessments and Market Value

If a property's tax figure comes from a 2025 assessment and the $16.49 rate, it reflects the old split of the town's tax total.

Expect the gap between assessments and market value to open again over time. Irvine told councilors that the goal is for assessments to reflect 100% of market value, then added, "Next year, if the market goes up three or four percent, well, our assessments are low."

That gap matters when you compare towns by rate. In February 2025 the assessor cited 2024 median ratios of 91.8% for Bedford, 86% for Goffstown and 75.5% for Manchester. A ratio of 75.5% means assessments ran about 25% below market. A town with older assessments can post a higher rate on a smaller base, so comparing headline rates across towns can mislead. Manchester is also running a 2026 citywide revaluation, and Manchester Ink Link reported that its new rate was expected to be substantially lower than 2025's. A lower rate there will have the same cause as in Bedford.

Quick Answers

When were Bedford's new values set? Preliminary 2026 values were mailed the week of August 3, 2026. Informal hearings ran from August 17 to 21, 2026.

Is the $14.73 rate final? Yes. DRA's 2026 completed-rates table lists Bedford's rate as set on October 20, 2026.

Contact Michelle Gannon to discuss your next move.