The letter
Barrington
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Barrington sits in Strafford County, between Rochester and Dover. About 9,600 people on 47 square miles. You will need a car.
Barrington’s 2025 certified total tax rate is $19.56 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is the bill-style number: town, county, local school, and state education added together. On a $500,000 house, figure about $9,780 a year. What you actually pay still follows how the town assesses your lot.
Most people own. A typical house is worth about $399,000. If you rent, figure about $1,870. Household income is around $110,000. Broadband is common. The town has zoning rules, so call the town office before you assume you can put a shop or a second house on the lot.
In 2024 they voted 3,241 to 2,985 for the Democrat for president.
Who represents you
In Washington, the House seat is Chris Pappas (D), 1st District. Both U.S. senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, are Democrats.
In Concord, the state senator is David H. Watters (D). Liberty Alliance graded him CT for 2026.
Barrington’s own House seats are Strafford 4. Three seats: Heath Howard (D, F), Cassandra Levesque (D, CT), and Len Turcotte (R, A-). There is also a floterial seat, a district that covers more than one town. That is Strafford 18: Michael Harrington (R, B).
What’s nearby
Grocery is about 19 minutes (Market Basket in Rochester). Barrington Middle School is about 8 minutes. The ER is Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, about 20 minutes. The hospital that delivers babies is Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, about 24 minutes.
If you need a city job, Manchester is about 55 minutes from the middle of town.
Those are map estimates with no traffic. Drive it yourself.
A rule that changed: no multi-family in General Residential
Multifamily housing means apartment buildings with more than two units. In March 2026 voters passed a zoning change that no longer allows that in the General Residential district. The vote on Article 4 was 1,186 to 640.
If you are buying a house
Ask the seller for the paper New Hampshire makes them give you. It covers radon, arsenic, lead, PFAS, and flood. Then look the lot up on FEMA’s flood map. Regular home insurance usually will not pay if the river comes up.
Crime in Barrington
Barrington has its own police. In 2024 the FBI counted 2 violent crimes and 30 property crimes. That’s 32 reports in a town of about 9,600. Low, but still real.
That puts Barrington in line with the rest of the state: New Hampshire’s violent-crime rate is about 110 per 100,000 people.
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