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Derry
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Derry is south of Manchester in Rockingham County. About 34,100 people on 35 square miles. You will need a car.
Derry’s 2025 certified total tax rate is $18.99 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 $9,495 a year. What you actually pay still follows how the town assesses your lot.
A typical house is worth about $432,000. If you rent, figure about $1,550. Household income is around $109,000. 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 9,989 to 7,851 for the Republican for president.
This week in New Hampshire
Politics
On November 3, every town in New Hampshire, Derry included, votes on whether to cap the local school property tax. If 60 percent vote yes, that tax can only grow with inflation and new construction for two years, and SAU central office spending is held to 6 percent of the school budget. The courts refused to pull the question off the ballot, and a September 24 UNH poll had it at 46 percent yes and 33 percent no.
New Hampshire has one of the strictest license plate camera laws in the country. Police can scan plates only for specific reasons and must delete a scan within three minutes unless it leads to an arrest, a citation, or locating a missing person, which has largely kept Flock-style tracking networks out of the state. Florida’s governor pointed to New Hampshire as the model in early September, and a Milton Republican has already asked for a 2027 bill to tighten the rules further, the New Hampshire Bulletin reports.
Derry’s seat in Congress is open, because Chris Pappas is leaving it to run for the U.S. Senate against Republican John E. Sununu. A UNH poll released September 24 has the 1st District race close, with Democrat Stefany Shaheen at 46 percent and Republican Anthony DiLorenzo at 42, and Pappas ahead of Sununu 50 to 42. Pappas also backed out of a Senate debate at New England College, months after criticizing Sununu for skipping one.
The owner of the closed Merrimack Station coal plant in Bow has looked into putting a large data center on the site, and most residents who spoke at a September 22 selectboard meeting were against it. No application has been filed, and if one is, Bow’s planning board would decide it. Governor Kelly Ayotte says she will propose a statewide moratorium on data center construction in her 2027 budget, so the real question for property owners is whether a decision like this belongs to each town or to Concord.
Things to do
Fall is fair and festival season here, and all of these are within about an hour of Derry.
The Deerfield Fair runs Thursday, October 1, through Sunday, October 4, in Deerfield. Kids 12 and under get in free, so it is an easy day of animals, rides, and fair food.
Applecrest Farm Orchards in Hampton Falls holds its Fall Foliage Festival on Saturday and Sunday, October 3 and 4, and another festival weekend October 10 to 12. Admission, parking, and tractor rides are free, and there is a corn maze and barnyard animals for the kids.
First Act is putting on a free matinee of The Little Mermaid Jr. at the Derry Opera House on Friday, October 9, at 1 p.m., made for homeschool families and families with young children. Little ones are welcome to wiggle, but you need to reserve your seats ahead of time.
The Milford Pumpkin Festival is Friday, October 9, through Sunday, October 11, on the Milford Oval. Kids can paint pumpkins, make scarecrows, see the giant pumpkin weigh-off, and fling pumpkins from a catapult into Railroad Pond.
The Warner Fall Foliage Festival is Friday, October 9, through Sunday, October 11, on Main Street in Warner. There are rides, a kids’ fun run, an oxen competition, lumberjacks, and a parade whose theme this year is classic children’s games.
Elected Officials
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 Regina Birdsell (R). Liberty Alliance graded her B+ for 2026.
Derry’s own House seats are Rockingham 13. Ten seats, all Republican: Charles Foote (C), David Love (A), David Milz (B-), Erica Layon (A+), Jodi Nelson (C), John Potucek (A), Katherine Prudhomme-O’Brien (A), Phyllis Katsakiores (B+), Richard Tripp (B+), and Stephen Pearson (B).
What’s nearby
Grocery is about 9 minutes (Shaw’s). Pinkerton Academy is about 7 minutes. That is the high school Derry students attend. The ER is Parkland Medical Center, about 10 minutes, in Derry. The hospital that delivers babies is Elliot Hospital in Manchester, about 27 minutes.
If you need a city job, Manchester is about 27 minutes from the middle of town.
Those are map estimates with no traffic. Drive it yourself.
Worth knowing: school offices on Main Street
The school offices are at 18 South Main Street. That building is School Administrative Unit (SAU) #10. In March 2026 voters authorized the school board to sell it. Article 5 passed 1,320 to 415. State law gives charter schools a right of first refusal on the sale. That means they get the first chance to buy.
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 Derry
Derry has its own police. In 2024 the FBI counted 40 violent crimes and 249 property crimes. That’s 289 reports in a town of about 34,100. Low for the size, but still real.
That puts Derry 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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