Merrimac, MA Tier 3

Tier 3 · solid schools · 33 miles from downtown Boston, about 71 minutes door-to-door at peak · 84% of households own their home.

Merrimac, Massachusetts
Merrimac · photo via Wikipedia

About Merrimac

Merrimac is a middle-tier school district north of Boston, about 33 miles from downtown Boston as the crow flies and 71 minutes door-to-door at peak, and moderately priced by Massachusetts standards: roughly $675k for a 4BR house and $385k for a 2BR condo. The residential rate is $13.50 per $1,000, on the high side for Massachusetts, which on a $675k house works out to about $9,100 a year. There is no MBTA rail here, so the commute is by car. The district sits in the 64th percentile statewide on MCAS, and Niche ranks it 94th of 236. A small-common town on the New Hampshire border.

At a glanceMerrimac
Schoolssolid schools · Niche 94th of 236 Tier 3
Commute to Boston~71 min at peak · 33 mi · no rail Tier 4
Home price (4BR)$675k Tier 2
Property tax$13.50 per $1,000 · ≈$9,100/yr Tier 3

The vibe of Merrimac

Residential suburbs & small townsmedium confidence

Low-key, lower-density, and well provided with recreation programs, playgrounds and athletic fields; mixed in housing stock, from multifamily properties and smaller condos to higher-priced single-family homes, with limited cultural offerings, mostly residential, and moderate gathering options.

Energy4
Compact town center4
Family amenities3
Culture4
Visitor presence2
Public gathering places6

Six 1–10 scales for the intensity of each quality, not a score of how good the place is. Higher just means more of that thing. Family amenities counts public recreation infrastructure, not who lives here; these never use race, ethnicity or other protected characteristics, and never measure safety. See the methodology.

The good

About $675k for a 4BR, under the $750k median of our set.

The bad

About 71 minutes to downtown at peak, and no rail to escape it.

The ugly

About $9k a year in property tax — the one housing bill that never amortises, never refinances and never ends.

Drawn from Merrimac's own numbers on this page, not from local reputation — we don't have a strong editorial view on every town.

$675k
4BR / 2BA house (est.)
$520k
3BR townhouse (est.)
$385k
2BR condo (est.)
$13.50
Tax per $1,000 (FY2026)
71 min
Peak drive to Boston (modeled)
No MBTA rail
84%
Homeowners (ACS 2019–23)
6,723
Residents

Where it is

📍 Merrimac · Boston is on the same map for scale

What it takes to live here

To buyMedian price (est.)
4BR / 2BA detached house$675k
3BR / 2BA townhouse$520k
2BR condo$385k
Property taxes (FY2026)$13.50 per $1,000 (1.35%)

Each row opens live listings on Redfin for that home type at or below that price, in ZIP 01860. Prices here are modeled estimates; what Redfin shows is the real market today, and the two will not match.

To rentPer month (est.)
4 bedrooms$3,390/mo
3 bedrooms$3,080/mo
2 bedrooms$2,560/mo
1 bedroom$2,160/mo

Rents are HUD FY2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents for Merrimac’s ZIP codes — 40th-percentile standard-quality units, so a nice single-family will ask more. Prices are market estimates, not appraisals. Each row opens rentals of that size in ZIP 01860. The search is not capped at the figure beside it: these are benchmark rents rather than asking rents, and filtering to one would hide most of what is actually listed.

Public elementary & middle schools

5 public schools in Merrimac — 1 elementary and 4 middle
ElementaryPK–2 · 216 students
Elementary / middlePK–6 · 535 students
Elementary / middlePK–6 · 345 students
Elementary / middle3–6 · 261 students
Middle7–8 · 363 students

Public schools of Merrimac’s district, from the DESE 2025–26 enrolment report. These are the schools assigned by address, not by choice. A regional district’s schools appear on every member town’s page; charter schools are public but allocated by lottery and are listed separately below, and the public high school is named in the rankings that follow.

Public School Rankings

Publisher rankingResult
Niche 2026 · Best School Districts#94 of 236 MA districts · B+
U.S. News 2025-26 · Assigned high school#94 of 366 MA · Pentucket Regional Senior High School
Boston Magazine 2025 · Greater Boston high school#80 of 135 · Pentucket Regional High School
Official Massachusetts data (DESE)Result
MCAS achievement64th percentile statewide
Student growth (SGP)48th percentile
4-year graduation rate98.1%
DESE accountabilityModerate progress toward targets

Each publisher ranks a different unit (district, locality, or a single school) with its own methodology — shown separately, never blended. DESE figures come from the latest official state reports; MCAS percentile is the district’s statewide rank on % Meeting/Exceeding expectations, ELA + Math. Our editorial school tier above is a separate summary.

School building projects: No major full-school construction or comprehensive rebuild with a published total project budget was located in the live MSBA, municipal, school-project, contractor, and local-news review completed in July 2026. This does not mean no school capital work occurred.

Charter School Options

2 charter schools near Merrimac
Adjacent town · HaverhillTuition-free · lotteryK–8 · Charter (public, tuition-free) · growth 52nd pct · In need of focused/targeted support · $17k/pupil
Adjacent town · NewburyportTuition-free · lotteryK–8 · Charter (public, tuition-free) · growth 59th pct · Substantial progress toward targets · $18k/pupil

Charter schools are public and tuition-free. Admission is by lottery, not address — a seat is never guaranteed. Because they are public, the state publishes their results: MCAS percentile, accountability status and per-pupil spending come from DESE. Several charters here are alternative or recovery high schools that enrol students already off-track, so their MCAS and graduation figures are not comparable with a traditional school’s.

Available Private School Options

9 private schools in Merrimac and within 12 miles
In Merrimac6–12 + SP · Specialized / placement · 19 students · placement/specialized
Adjacent town · HaverhillK–12 · PK/K–12 · 175 students · 6.7:1 student-teacher · ~$10k–$20k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NewburyportPK–8 · Elementary / middle · 198 students · ~$8k–$15k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NewburyNEASC accredited9–12 · High school · ~$40k–$52k/yr (est.) · ~$70k/yr boarding
Adjacent town · NewburyPK–4 · Elementary · ~$18k–$30k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · MethuenPK–8 · Elementary / middle · 258 students · ~$8k–$15k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · Methuen2–12 · PK/K–12 · 135 students · 7.2:1 student-teacher · ~$18k–$28k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · MethuenPK–12 · PK/K–12 · 121 students · ~$10k–$20k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · BoxfordPK–10 · PK/K–12 · 53 students · ~$18k–$28k/yr (est.)

Schools within 12 miles of Merrimac, from the MA DESE 2025–26 non-public enrollment report plus the Niche ranking of Massachusetts private high schools. Tuition shown as an estimated range by school type, grades and region — not school-published pricing. A parochial school and an independent day school are priced very differently, so treat these as a starting point and confirm with the school. Niche ranks private high schools only, so an elementary school never carries a number; where one shows a letter instead, that is Niche’s own overall grade, which reaches schools no ranked list does. Neither is a state measure — private schools sit no MCAS and report no results to Massachusetts. That Niche extract is also partial, so a school showing neither was not judged and found wanting; it may simply not have been in it. Student numbers are the figure schools do report, from the same DESE return. Where a student-teacher ratio is shown it is students over full-time-equivalent teachers in the federal Private School Universe Survey, 2021–22, the most recent published — a rough guide to class size, not a class size, and not a ranking either. It is shown only where that survey and the state agree on how many pupils the school has, which is why many schools here have none. Accreditation comes from the AISNE member directory, which records whether a school holds AISNE or NEASC accreditation — the two split the work by age rather than compete, AISNE taking the elementary and middle schools and NEASC the secondary ones. It means an outside body has reviewed the school against published standards on a ten-year cycle. It is not a measure of results, and its absence is not a mark against a school: plenty are not members at all. That directory is also where the schools marked files no enrolment with the state come from. They are real schools that simply make no return to Massachusetts, so the state holds no size for them and this page can show none — and for those, the grade range is read off AISNE’s age bands rather than taken from the school, so treat it as approximate and confirm with the school.

What’s around Merrimac

suburban791 people per square mile across 8.5 sq mi suburban — 500–2,000 per square mile

What’s hereCount
Cafés and coffee shops0
Bookshops0
Museums, theatres and galleries0
Colleges and universities0
Public libraryMerrimac Public Library

Density is Census population over land area. Café, bookshop and culture counts are what is mapped in OpenStreetMap — a volunteer map, so a well-mapped town looks busier than a thinly-mapped one. Read a low count as “little mapped here”, not “nothing here”. Colleges are active degree-granting institutions in the federal IPEDS directory; enrolment and campus housing capacity are its 2023 figures. The public library comes from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, which lists library systems rather than every branch. These figures describe places, never the people in them — see our methodology.

Census snapshot
ACS 2019–2023 (via MAPC DataCommon)Share
Homeowner households84%
White (non-Hispanic)94%
Asian (non-Hispanic)1.0%
Latino / Hispanic3.0%
African American (non-Hispanic)1.0%
These figures are neutral census facts, shown for every town equally. They are never used to filter, rank, or recommend towns — see our methodology and the federal Fair Housing Act.

Town spending & civic data

MerrimacFigure
Residents6,723
Municipal budgetFY2025, DLS Schedule A$22.7M
School district spendingPentucket district$49.1M
Spending per pupil DESE, total expenditures$20,723
School spending per resident$7,305
Affordable housing units (Ch. 40B inventory)295

Municipal budget is Merrimac’s FY2025 General Fund total expenditures from its DLS Schedule A filing — the appropriated operating budget, excluding self-supporting enterprise funds. School spending is the Pentucket district’s total expenditures from the DESE Per Pupil Expenditure report — a regional district, so the spend covers every member town, not just this one. Affordable-housing counts reflect the state Subsidized Housing Inventory. These figures are shown as neutral facts and never used to rank or filter towns.

Data status

FigureStatus
Home pricesCalibrated to the Zillow Home Value Index and Redfin market pages. For comparison, not appraisal.Preliminary
Property tax rateFY2026 residential rate per $1,000, from municipal assessor and treasurer pages.Preliminary
RentsHUD FY2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents, by ZIP.Sourced
School dataDESE published state reports. Publisher ranks carry their own edition and denominator. The school tier is editorial.Sourced
CommuteRail times for the 75 towns we could verify against the MBTA's published timetable are real scheduled journeys, transfers included. Where a town has rail but no verified journey, its rail time is modeled too, and the town page says so. Driving is modeled from distance with corridor adjustments, and station access is a flat allowance. Not measured by a routing API.Measured + modeled

This community was added after the original hundred, so its prices and tax rate are preliminary estimates pending verification against municipal and census records. Data last reviewed . Full detail on every source is in the methodology.

Realistic alternatives to Merrimac

Towns you could plausibly shortlist instead: comparable price and school tier, similar size and density, same part of the state.

GrovelandTier 3
Also Tier 3, about $75k more expensive
PepperellTier 3
Also Tier 3, about $125k cheaper
DracutTier 3
Also Tier 3, 9 min closer to Boston
GeorgetownTier 3
Also Tier 3, about $125k more expensive
SalisburyTier 3
Also Tier 3, about $100k cheaper
TyngsboroughTier 3
Also Tier 3, 6 min closer to Boston
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