CONCORD, NH – The New Hampshire residential home real estate market continues to be tight, with lack of inventory and affordability remaining a tough one-two punch.
Median sales price for a single-family home in July was $480,000, according to the monthly market report from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors. That price is 6.7% higher than July 2022’s $450,000, but it’s also lower than June’s all-time state high of $499,450. (That price was originally reported as $495,000, but has since been adjusted). Median means that half of the homes sold for a higher price, half for a lower price.
Meanwhile, the affordability index remains near an all-time low, at 62. That means that the median New Hampshire income is 62% of what’s necessary to qualify to buy a median-priced home. June’s index was an all-time low of 61. The index takes into account the monthly cost of paying for a home, including mortgage, insurance and property taxes. An ideal index is 100 or higher.
Nationally, the median sales price is $410,200, which is just below the all-time national high of $413,800 in June 2022.
New Hampshire has a 1.6-month inventory of single-family homes, which means if all the homes on the market were to sell, it would take about a month and half to eliminate the inventory. Industry experts say an ideal inventory is six to eight months. The national inventory is 3.1.
Rising interest rates, which approached 7% nationally in the past few months, are one reason for the high prices and a drop in sales, both in New Hampshire and nationally, according to the NHAR.
The rise in rates have prompted “many prospective buyers to put their home purchase plans temporarily on hold,” the NHAR said.
“But higher rates have also kept many existing homeowners from listing their homes for fear of giving up the low-rate mortgages they locked in a few years ago, when rates were significantly lower,” NHAR said.
“The lack of inventory has boosted competition among buyers and put upward pressure on sales prices, especially in more affordable markets, where competition for homes remains particularly strong,” NHAR added.
Prospective New Hampshire home buyers hoping for a cheaper condo option are also getting slammed with sticker shock.
The median sales price for a condo in July was $384,950, a 13.2% hike over July 2022’s $340,000. Still, that’s the lowest median sales price for a condo in three months – May’s MSP was $396,450 and June’s was $400,000. The condo affordability index in July was 78.
Year-to-date numbers reflect the continued trend of high prices and low affordability.
The single-family home median sales price so far this year is $465,000, a 4.5% increase over the $445,000 of last year at this time. The affordability index for the year to date was 76 last year at this time.
The condo median sales price this year so far is $369,900, a 10.5% increase over last year’s $335,000. The year-to-date affordability index is 81, compared to 101 at this time last year.
Lack of affordability and inventory has led to a drop in closed sales.
There were 1,142 closed single-family home sales in July, compared to 1,480 in July 2022, a 22.8% decrease. So far this year, there have been 6,132, compared to last year’s 7,688, a 20% decrease.
The decrease in listings follows a similar pattern. There were 1,438 new listings in July, compared to 1,842 in July 2022, a 21.9% drop. So far this year, there have been 8.156 listings. There were 10,564 by this time last year, a 22.8% decrease.
Some of the numbers from the July report (all information is from the July NHAR residential market report:
