The houses
Chester counted 32,605 residents in 2020 and 14,929 housing units in the 2024 five-year ACS. The city is old and the housing is old with it. The 1724 courthouse on Market Street still stands, on the National Register since 1971, and Widener’s Old Main joined it in 1978. The street grid predates the car, and so do plenty of the brick rows, twins and stone singles on it.
Brick rows off Market, twins on the side streets, stone singles where the grid opens up. Slate and asphalt over old rafters, plaster on lath, a panel somebody added to twice, and a lateral that predates the trolley. It’s fine, it’s fixable, and the fixes are the same short list every time.
FHA writes that list down: defective paint gets repaired on anything built on or before December 31, 1978, the roof needs two years of life left in it, and the plumbing, heat and electric all get run. The rest of it is one page and it’s the same in every old Delco town.
So it’s a repair budget with a due date on it. Put the list in the offer while you’ve still got a contingency.
The inspection the city stopped running
Here’s the local surprise, and it runs backwards from the rest of the county. Chester repealed its point-of-sale inspection in July 2025. There’s no city certificate to schedule, no municipal appointment sitting between you and a settlement date.
That’s genuinely unusual here. Almost every other town in Delco makes you book an inspector weeks ahead and wait on a certificate, and that’s the piece that moves settlements everywhere else. Worth knowing if you’re shopping the city and the boroughs at the same time, because the two timelines don’t look alike.
What hasn’t gone away is the appraiser’s list and your own inspector’s. Neither of those is the city’s, and both still belong in the contingency period.
What sold, and what the loan looks like
A hundred and twenty-five houses closed here in July 2026, forty more than the same month in 2025. The middle one went for $135,000, and the typical one took 74 days to get to a contract (Movoto). A hundred and twenty-five closings in a month is a deep sample, so that median is one you can plan off.
A different measure: the 2024 five-year ACS puts the median value of owner-occupied houses at $83,100, plus or minus $7,041.
At 3.5% down, $135,000 works out to $4,725. That’s arithmetic off the median, an estimate; the lender sets the real number, and closing costs sit on top. Delaware County’s 2026 FHA limit is $630,200 on a one-unit house, so the ceiling is nowhere near the constraint here. Condition shapes these deals, which is why the 203(k) comes up so often in this city.
The tax lines
City real estate tax is 9.4041 mills for 2026. The resident earned income tax is 3.75%, and it’s 2.00% for non-residents. The county adds 4.6090 mills.
Chester Upland School District, which covers the city, Chester Township and Upland, presented a 2026-27 budget on May 28, 2026 that moves the city rate from 15.2753 to 16.1154 mills. That is a 5.5% increase the district put at about $105 a year, with final adoption scheduled for June 18, 2026. The district’s own state filing shows a second set of figures computed a different way, so read the adopted rate off your bill instead of off a slide.
Transfer tax is 2.5% in total, the city’s local 1.5% since September 1, 2023 plus the state’s 1%, which is $3,375 on a $135,000 sale.
The city’s own $10,000
Delaware County’s Homeownership First program excludes properties that pay property tax to Chester City, along with Haverford Township and Upper Darby Township, because all three receive their own federal housing money and run their own programs.
Chester’s is the Chester Homebuyers Assistance Program, administered by the Chester Economic Development Authority with CCIP: up to $10,000 toward down payment and closing costs as a 0% loan for first-time buyers inside the city, with certified housing counseling required first. CCIP counts 700 households counseled and 225 purchases in Chester since 2009.
Current income limits and repayment terms aren’t published anywhere readable, so call CEDA at (610) 447-7850 for the 2026 sheet before you plan around any of it.
What the Chapter 9 ruling changed
The city has been in Act 47 since 1995 and filed Chapter 9 on November 10, 2022, with the eligibility order following on March 14, 2023. It filed a plan of adjustment in August 2024 and withdrew it in March 2026.
On July 17, 2026 the Third Circuit ruled in the city’s favor. The liens behind roughly $15.2 million of 2017 revenue bonds turned out to be consensual, and casino host payments count as fees. So the city keeps its Harrah’s slot and table revenue along with its incinerator host fees, and $1.4 million was released.
What that means on a bill: the 2026 city budget, summarized December 8, 2025, holds the real estate tax rate and the solid waste fee flat on a $62,199,011 general fund, down 0.9%.
Trains, the creek and the waterfront
Chester Transportation Center at 595 Avenue of the States is the main stop on the Wilmington/Newark Line, a 1903 Pennsylvania Railroad station electrified in 1928, with seven SEPTA bus routes underneath the rail platforms. Highland Avenue at 450 Highland Ave is the second stop: 23 parking spaces, wooden low platforms, no accessible boarding.
Chester Creek meets the Delaware inside the city and Ridley Creek forms the eastern line. At the Chester Creek gauge, minor stage is 8 feet, moderate is 10 and major is 14. The record is 24.6 feet, set September 13, 1971. Ida crested at 10.46 feet on September 2, 2021, just over the moderate line. Pull the FEMA map and price flood coverage before you set a budget.
On the waterfront, the Union play at Subaru Park on September 5, September 26, October 10, October 17 and October 24.