In January 2024, about 100 frustrated taxpayers packed Conway's town hall over a tax bill spike following a recent property revaluation. Selectmen listened. A homeowner asked questions about the tax calculations. By March, he and his wife had done the math themselves, and it didn't sit right.
Conway's property tax rate is one factor to consider when comparing towns in the Mount Washington Valley. The rate shown on a listing sheet or tax calculator reflects a particular tax year. The BTLA has ordered a reassessment for the 2027 tax year, so rate comparisons with Bartlett, Jackson, or Madison should account for the timing of that reassessment.
How Conway's Tax Rate Is Calculated
A New Hampshire town's tax rate is simple arithmetic: the money the town, county, and school districts need to raise, divided by the town's total assessed property value, expressed as dollars per $1,000. When a townwide revaluation raises the total assessed value, the rate per $1,000 tends to fall, even if individual tax bills don't.
That's exactly what happened in Conway. The town's base tax rate, covering municipal, county, and school levies, dropped from $17.08 per $1,000 in 2022 to $10.18 per $1,000 in 2023, following a revaluation, according to reporting by the Concord Monitor. On paper, that looks like relief. For many residential owners, it wasn't. The same reporting noted that many residential assessments rose considerably in that revaluation, so a lower rate applied to a much higher assessed value still produced a heftier bill.
The homeowners' question was narrower and more pointed: did commercial property go up in the revaluation the way residential property did? Their answer, backed eventually by a state board, was no.
The Assessment Issue Before the BTLA
The homeowner told selectmen in March 2024 that roughly $109 million in assessed value in Conway was unaccounted for in the tax rate calculation, which he estimated translated to $1,253,272 in tax burden shifted onto residential property owners, per the Concord Monitor's coverage of that meeting. He and his wife filed a formal petition with the New Hampshire Board of Tax and Land Appeals asking for a full reassessment.
The board didn't dismiss it. In a February 2025 interim order, the BTLA found that commercial properties sold in Conway between August 2023 and August 2024 had been assessed at about 77% of market value, well below the state's acceptable range of 90 to 110%, according to NHPR's reporting on the case. The board also flagged a lack of transparency in how commercial properties had been assessed and problems with the town's contracted inspection process. Within days, the town's assessing firm, Corcoran Consulting of Wolfeboro, terminated its own contract with Conway.
The petition and the interim order brought the assessment disparity into focus, providing context for the rate history below.
A Rate That Fell While Some Bills Climbed
Here's the rate history, laid out plainly:
| Tax Year | Base Rate (per $1,000) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $17.08 | Pre-revaluation |
| 2023 | $10.18 | Post-revaluation, commercial later found under-assessed |
| 2025 (preliminary) | $11.54 | Up from $11.32 in 2024, a 2% increase |
The 2025 figure comes from selectmen's December 2025 meeting, where they set a preliminary rate of $11.54 per $1,000, up from $11.32 the year before, an increase the Conway Daily Sun put at just under 2%. Run that against a $400,000 assessed home: at $11.32 the town portion is $4,528, at $11.54 it's $4,616, an $88 difference before county and school levies are added.
The BTLA finding provides context for the rates: the commercial under-assessment it identified remained uncorrected when selectmen approved the 2025 rate. The homeowners estimated that more than $1.2 million in tax burden had shifted to residential owners, illustrating the stakes of that unresolved assessment.
The BTLA's Reassessment Timeline
In its July 2025 reassessment order, the BTLA concluded it would be unwise to order a reassessment for the 2025 or 2026 tax years given ongoing concerns with the physical data on commercial and industrial properties, and instead ordered the reassessment for the 2027 tax year. The order noted Conway's plan to convert its aging assessing software, Univers, to a newer system called Vision starting in fall 2026, ahead of a full cyclical revaluation with a statistical update in 2027.
Town Manager John Eastman told the Conway Daily Sun the town would comply fully with the board's order. The town is rebuilding its assessing process after the assessing firm ended its contract. The order left the 2025 and 2026 tax cycles on the existing assessment base before the reassessment.
The homeowners, for their part, weren't thrilled about the timeline. As NHPR reported, they responded to the interim order:
"It's unfortunate that a reassessment order in 2025 wasn't issued, as commercial tax burden will continue to be shifted to residential taxpayers for another year, but we understand the order in light of the scathing findings in the document. We thank the BTLA for the thoroughness of their investigation."
Their response came as the town awaited the full reassessment ordered for 2027.
What This Means If You're Buying in Conway Now
The BTLA's order does not predict how Conway's tax rate will change after 2027; that depends on how the reassessment redistributes value between commercial and residential parcels townwide. A correction that brings commercial assessments up toward true market value could, in theory, ease pressure on residential rates relative to where they'd otherwise land. It could also simply reset the base without changing who pays what, depending on how individual properties are reappraised. The BTLA's order doesn't promise residential relief. It promises a more accurate assessment, which is a different thing.
For anyone comparing Conway to a town like Jackson or Bartlett on rate alone, that distinction matters. Those towns' current rates reflect a settled assessment cycle. Conway's rate is based on an assessment cycle scheduled for reassessment under the BTLA order in 2027.
A few things worth asking before you write an offer here:
- Ask when the specific parcel was last physically inspected, not just when the town's last townwide revaluation was completed.
- Ask whether the property is residential, commercial, or mixed use, since the BTLA's findings were specific to commercial and industrial assessments, not residential ones.
- Budget for the possibility that your assessment could move in either direction once the 2027 cyclical revaluation with full statistical update takes effect, rather than assuming today's assessed value is a fixed number for the life of your ownership.
Conway's assessing office, currently listed under Assistant Assessor Corie Hilton, keeps searchable assessment records if you want to see a specific parcel's history before you go further.
FAQ
Will my Conway tax bill jump when the 2027 reassessment happens? It's not possible to say in advance. The BTLA order calls for a full statistical update and cyclical revaluation, which resets assessed values based on then-current market data. Whether any individual bill rises, falls, or stays flat depends on how that property's new assessment compares to the townwide average, not on the reassessment happening at all.
Should I wait until after 2027 to buy in Conway? That's a personal financial decision, not one this post can make for you. What's useful to know now is that the number on today's listing sheet reflects a base the state has already flagged as skewed toward residential owners, so it shouldn't be treated as a stable long-term comparison point against towns that aren't mid-correction.
Does this affect North Conway village the same way it affects the rest of town? North Conway village sits inside the Town of Conway's boundaries and is covered by the same municipal tax rate and the same BTLA order. The commercial under-assessment findings applied to commercial and industrial properties sold townwide between August 2023 and August 2024, not to a single village or district.
Property tax mechanics rarely make it into a listing description, but they shape what a home actually costs you to hold for the next several years. If you're weighing a purchase in Conway, North Conway, or anywhere else in the valley and want a straight read on what a specific property's tax history actually shows, Pinkham Real Estate can walk through it with you parcel by parcel. Contact our team to start your Mount Washington Valley search.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.