Buying in Strafford County, New Hampshire

Strafford County at a glance

Strafford County is one of 10 counties and county-equivalents in New Hampshire. Its county seat is Dover. County government publishes its offices and parcel tools online. Official county website. With a 2024 Census Bureau population estimate of 134,202, it is the fourth most populous county in New Hampshire. In the FBI's 2024 reported-crime file, agencies here reported 1,353 offenses — 10.08 per 1,000 residents; the breakdown is below.

Records to check before you buy in Strafford County

• Property record card — the Strafford County assessor / appraisal office. Pull the parcel's assessed-value history, exemption status, and last sale. This is the file your future tax bill is calculated from, and it shows whether the current owner is enjoying exemptions you will not inherit. County government sits in Dover; the official county website is the reliable route to the parcel search and the office directory.
• Deeds & liens — the Strafford County recorder / land-records office. Read the deed chain, open liens, easements, and plat maps — the file a listing never mentions.
• Official flood determination. Check the exact parcel on FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer — not the listing site's licensed model. Zone boundaries cut through streets; the house next door can be in a different zone. Strafford County is the primary county for 16 ZIP codes in the Census Bureau's ZIP-to-county crosswalk — and zone lines ignore every one of them.
• The county's reported-crime record. In the FBI's 2024 file, agencies in Strafford County reported 1,353 offenses — 10.08 per 1,000 residents; the largest single category was larceny-theft (1,106). The crime section below sets that beside the New Hampshire county median.
• Registry check. Run the address through New Hampshire Sex Offender / Offender Against Children Registry (New Hampshire Department of Safety, Division of State Police) and note the counts within a mile — then check again the week you close.
• Permits & code history — the Strafford building department. Open permits, expired permits, and code cases tell you whether the renovation in the photos was ever inspected. County permitting is run out of Dover.
• School assignment — the district office, not the listing. Only the district's own boundary lookup confirms which school an address is actually zoned for.

County list, land area and population: U.S. Census Bureau (population: 2024 PEP estimate). County seat and official website: Wikidata (CC0), checked 2026-11-04. Flood determinations: FEMA. Registry: New Hampshire.

Reported crime in Strafford County — FBI 2024

Reported crime in Strafford County in 2024 was overwhelmingly property crime: agencies logged 1,353 offenses, of which 1,243 were property offenses and 110 violent. The total rate is 10.08 per 1,000 residents (violent 82.0, property 926.2 per 100,000).

Inside New Hampshire, the median county in the same file recorded a violent-crime rate of 90 per 100,000 and a property-crime rate of 914 per 100,000 (medians computed from the FBI 2024 county file across 10 counties).

The largest reported categories were larceny-theft (1,106), motor vehicle theft (73) and burglary (64).

Coverage: 16 of 16 law-enforcement agencies assigned to this county reported at least one month of 2024 offense data to the FBI; 16 reported all 12 months. Counts are reported offenses only (FBI Return A / Arson master files), assigned whole to each agency's primary county; they are not adjusted for non-reporting agencies.

These are offenses reported to law enforcement — not convictions, and not a verdict on any street or address. A CurbFacts report pairs this county record with the ZIP-level picture for the specific address you are buying.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, UCR Return A + Arson master files, data year 2024 (pulled 2026-11-04).

The New Hampshire rules that apply in Strafford County

Traps researched for New Hampshire buyers: Transfer tax is split — buyer pays half; Well and septic facts are the statutory disclosure, and they are thin.

Read the full New Hampshire guide — disclosure standard, tax math, registry and flood

More New Hampshire counties

All New Hampshire counties · New Hampshire buyer guide