Eighteen houses sold in Franklin in all of 2025. That's one and a half closings a month for the entire town. The median was $353,745, and Franklin was one of five towns in New London County where homes sold below asking — 99.3% of list. 1,863 residents, a mill rate of 21.25. It's one of the smallest and least-taxed towns in the region, and buying here works differently than buying anywhere with real volume.
Metric | 2025 | 2024 |
Median sale price, single-family | $353,745 | $322,500 |
Closed sales | 18 | 22 |
Median days on market | 26 | 22 |
Percent of list price received | 99.3% | 100.5% |
Full calendar year, single-family detached. Source: SmartMLS Local Market Update, December 2025.
Eighteen sales is the smallest sample in New London County, and it's small enough that I want to be straight with you about what these figures can and can't tell you.
The median of 18 sales is just the 9th and 10th houses that happened to close. One estate sale, one unusually big property, one new build & the number visibly moves. The reported 9.7% year-over-year increase should not be read as "Franklin homes appreciated 9.7%." Read it as "the middle of what sold in 2025 was 9.7% higher than the middle of what sold in 2024." Those are two different sentences.
Same caution on the 99.3% of list. In an 18-sale market, two or three houses that sat and then cut price will drag that under 100 no matter how healthy the rest of it was.
What that means for you, practically: town-level statistics can't price your house in Franklin. There might be only two or three genuine comparables for a given property, and they might be more than a year old and need adjusting. This is a town where you build the analysis house by house, and where knowing what actually traded, and what fell apart before it traded, matters far more than any market report.
Franklin's mill rate is 21.25, confirmed in the town's own Legal Notice published in January 2026.
That's genuinely low. Look at what's around it: Bozrah 23.50, Lisbon 26.70, Griswold 27.87, Salem 30.20, Sprague 30.40, Montville 31.43, and Norwich's general fund rate at 34.15.
On a $353,745 house — the town median — assessed at Connecticut's standard 70% of market value, you're looking at an assessment around $247,600. At 21.25 mills that's roughly $5,262 a year.
The same house in Montville at 31.43 mills runs about $7,783. So Franklin's rate puts roughly $2,500 a year back in a household's pocket. Hold it ten years and that's $25,000. That's real money & it's part of what you're buying.
Why the rate is low isn't a mystery. Very small town, one PK–8 school, no high school to fund directly, barely any municipal infrastructure, and a big agricultural land base assessed under Connecticut's farmland program. Franklin doesn't spend much because Franklin doesn't have much to spend on. That's the trade, and I'll say it plainly: low taxes here come with limited municipal services.
Franklin Elementary School serves the entire town PK–8 with roughly 185 students — and it's been recognized as a Connecticut School of Distinction.
That designation is the state's recognition for schools performing at a high level on its accountability measures, and for a school of 185 students in a town of 1,863, it's a real credential. It's also the most under-marketed asset in Franklin real estate, and I say that from experience. Buyers shopping small rural towns tend to assume small means limited. Here the state's own assessment says otherwise, and a listing that mentions it is doing the buyer a favor.
Roughly 20 kids per grade level means every child is known by name. It also means a small social world. Both are true.
Franklin has no high school. Kids go on to Norwich Free Academy and other regional options, with the town paying tuition. NFA is a school of choice whose sending communities fund tuition, and Franklin is one of its partner communities alongside Norwich, Bozrah, Brooklyn, Canterbury, Lisbon, Preston, Sprague and Voluntown. I couldn't verify whether partner-community status carries a guaranteed seat — call NFA and the Franklin superintendent's office directly, and get that answer before you buy if high school placement is going to decide it for you.
Franklin keeps an Agriculture and Conservation Commission, and the town publishes guidance on the Public Act 490 Conveyance Tax. Both of those tell you something real about the place.
Public Act 490 is Connecticut's farm, forest and open space program. It lets qualifying land be assessed at its use value instead of its market value, which cuts the property tax on working farmland and managed woodland way down. In a town like Franklin, a big share of the land is in it.
Here's the part that catches buyers and sellers off guard: PA 490 land carries a conveyance tax when it sells. If classified land is sold or its classification changes within a defined period after it entered the program, a conveyance tax is owed on the transfer, on a sliding scale that drops the longer the land was classified. It gets paid at closing.
So here's what I tell people, specifically.
If you're buying a property in Franklin with acreage, ask during diligence whether any of the land is classified under PA 490 and, if it is, when it went in. Then ask your attorney whether the transaction triggers the conveyance tax and who's paying it. This gets negotiated, and whoever understands it first usually wins that negotiation.
If you're buying classified land and you plan to change what it's used for — subdivide it, build on it, stop farming it — know that pulling land out of PA 490 costs you more than the conveyance tax. The assessment resets to full market value. A parcel that looked cheap to carry might not be once you change what it is.
I'd much rather flag this early than watch a client find it a week before closing. It's not a reason to avoid Franklin. It's a reason to have your attorney look at it properly.
Franklin re-adopted its Plan of Conservation and Development in January 2026, and that's the document that signals where a town intends to go. If you're buying with any long-term development question in your head, that plan is public. Go read it.
Franklin sits between Norwich, Lebanon and Bozrah. Rural and quiet, with the Dr. Ashbel Woodward Museum as its principal historic site — the home of a nineteenth-century physician, kept as a town museum.
Median household income runs around $105,000, which is high for this region and pretty much exactly what small-town Franklin is: established households, high owner-occupancy, almost no turnover. Eighteen sales a year is just the arithmetic of people not leaving.
One scheduling detail that'll genuinely save you a wasted trip: Franklin's Assessor is open Tuesdays only — 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., then again 6 to 8 p.m.
I'm not knocking them. That's what a town of 1,863 people can staff. But it has real consequences for a transaction. If you need an assessment record, a field card, or an answer about a PA 490 classification, you've got one day a week. Build that into your inspection contingency timeline instead of finding out on a Wednesday. And those evening hours are a real convenience if you work days, so use them.
Call and confirm any town office hours before you drive out. Small towns adjust schedules.
Franklin is well outside the crumbling-concrete foundation area. The 20-mile radius defining Connecticut's crumbling foundation program is centered on the former J.J. Mottes Concrete Company in Stafford Springs, way off to the northwest. That issue drives how I handle inspections in Tolland and Windham County. It isn't a Franklin concern.
Septic and well permits go through the Uncas Health District, which covers Franklin along with Bozrah, Griswold, Lebanon, Lisbon, Montville, Norwich, Preston, Salem, Sprague and Voluntown. Franklin is entirely a well-and-septic town. Pull the Uncas permit history on any house you're serious about. The installation date and the permitted bedroom count on a septic system are two of the most consequential items in a rural Connecticut purchase and two of the most commonly skipped — and that permitted bedroom count can quietly limit what you're allowed to do with the house later.
Eighteen sales means your house won't have to fight for attention. It also means a buyer has almost nothing to measure it against. That cuts both ways, and it's the central fact of selling here.
Three things I'd get ready.
Don't accept a price that came out of town medians. In an 18-sale market, an automated valuation is a guess. Ask whoever prices your house which specific properties the number came from, and whether those houses are anything like yours. If the answer is fuzzy, go get another opinion.
Lead with the tax rate. Franklin at 21.25 mills against Montville's 31.43 or Sprague's 30.40 is worth thousands of dollars a year to a buyer, and it's the strongest single argument this town has. Most Franklin listings never even mention it. Put the actual annual dollar amount in the marketing. A mill rate doesn't land with buyers; a number they can drop into a mortgage calculator does.
Settle the PA 490 question before you list, not during the inspection period. If you've got classified land, know when it was classified and what a sale triggers. A seller who brings that to the table looks like they know what they're doing. A seller whose buyer's attorney turns up a conveyance tax obligation two weeks before closing is renegotiating from a weak spot.
If you want a real number for your home, I'll walk the property, dig out the handful of comparables that genuinely apply, and tell you honestly what I think it brings.
And if part of what you're weighing is whether you need me at all — some people genuinely don't, and I'll tell you so — I wrote a straight piece on selling your house without an agent in Connecticut. It covers where doing it yourself actually works, what AI is genuinely good at now, and why an automated price struggles in a town that closes 18 homes a year.
Single-family homes sold at a median of $353,745 in 2025 across just 18 sales — the smallest sample in New London County. They sold at 99.3% of list in a median of 26 days. At 18 sales, that median tells you which particular houses happened to trade rather than what the town did, so read it as a rough direction. Source: SmartMLS Local Market Update, December 2025.
21.25 mills, confirmed in the town's Legal Notice published January 2026. That's among the lowest in the region, against Bozrah's 23.50, Griswold's 27.87, Sprague's 30.40 and Montville's 31.43. On a $353,745 house assessed at 70% of value, you're at roughly $5,262 a year.
No. Franklin Elementary School covers the whole town PK–8 with about 185 students, and it's been recognized as a Connecticut School of Distinction. High schoolers attend Norwich Free Academy and other regional options with the town paying tuition. Confirm current placement rules with the district if that matters to your purchase.
Public Act 490 is Connecticut's farm, forest and open space program, and it assesses qualifying land at use value instead of market value. When classified land sells or gets declassified within a defined period, a conveyance tax is owed at closing on a sliding scale that drops the longer the land was classified. Franklin publishes guidance on it. If you're buying acreage here, ask whether the land is classified, when it was classified, and who pays the conveyance tax, then have your attorney confirm it.
Tuesdays only, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. That's one day a week, which matters when you're up against an inspection contingency deadline. The evening hours help if you work days. Call before you drive out.
About 1,863 residents, with a median household income near $105,000. It's a rural, agricultural town between Norwich, Lebanon and Bozrah, home to the Dr. Ashbel Woodward Museum. Its Plan of Conservation and Development was re-adopted in January 2026.
No. Franklin is far outside the 20-mile radius around the former J.J. Mottes Concrete Company in Stafford Springs that defines Connecticut's crumbling foundation program area.
Franklin borders 5 of the other towns I cover, and people looking here almost always look at a couple of them too. Same guide, same numbers, for each one:
Or see how every town in the county compares side by side in my New London County real estate guide.
Sources and dates. Sale price, closed sales, days on market and percent of list received: SmartMLS Local Market Update, December 2025, single-family detached, full-year 2025 and 2024. Mill rate: Town of Franklin Legal Notice, January 2026. Comparison mill rates: Connecticut Office of Policy and Management and the respective towns. Public Act 490 program and conveyance tax: Connecticut General Statutes and Town of Franklin guidance. Agriculture and Conservation Commission and Plan of Conservation and Development re-adoption, January 2026: Town of Franklin. Schools, enrollment and School of Distinction recognition: Franklin Elementary School and Connecticut State Department of Education. Norwich Free Academy partner communities: Norwich Free Academy. Assessor hours: Town of Franklin. Population and median household income: U.S. Census Bureau. Dr. Ashbel Woodward Museum: Town of Franklin. Health district: Uncas Health District. Crumbling foundations radius: Connecticut Department of Housing.
Last updated August 2026. Tax rates and market data change — ask me for current numbers.
