Price drops and hot sales: Inside New Hampshire’s housing market

On Aug. 10, I was reading an article on Smart News called “If you live in one of these six states, consider selling while it’s still hot.” It was an interesting article, and guess what? New Hampshire was listed as the No. 1 hottest market in the country. Based on a study by Realtor.com, the report suggested that this month’s hottest markets are seeing significantly more demand than the typical home nationally. Despite still challenging housing conditions, the report indicated it may be bad news for buyers who are looking for an affordable home, but it certainly is good news for sellers who are ready to take advantage of the hot market.

The report listed two cities in NH with the hottest markets:

Manchester with a median list price of $630,000 and median days on the market of only 14 days.

Concord with a median list price of $600,000 and a median days on the market of only 17 days.

The other five states listed in the article by Smart News were No. 2 Connecticut, No. 3 Massachusetts, No. 4 New York, No. 5 Illinois, and No. 6 Ohio.

So, in NH, low inventory, rising prices, and the number of days on the market look very favorable for sellers. It’s obviously a great time to sell, especially since NH is presently the hottest market in the U.S., according to the report.

However, in the Lakes Region, we are starting to see more price reductions than we have seen in recent years. For example, I pulled up the 25 towns and cities in the Lakes Region on Prime MLS and found 46 price reductions for residential homes were made Aug. 8-14. I pulled up the same weekly period for 2023 and found only 14 price reductions for residential homes. This represents a 228% increase over the same period last year.

On Aug. 11, I read another article on CNBC Make It that showed the most and least expensive U.S. states based on monthly costs. I was surprised to see New Hampshire listed as the 10th most expensive state. The most expensive state was No. 1 Hawaii, No. 2 California, No. 3 Massachusetts, No. 4 New Jersey, No. 5 Maryland, No. 6 Washington, No. 7 New York, No. 8 Connecticut, No. 9 Colorado, and No. 10 New Hampshire.

The least expensive state was West Virginia, followed by Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Indiana, Alabama, and Missouri.

According to the New Hampshire Association of Realtors, the median price of a single-family home sold in NH was $530,000 in July, a record high for the month and a 10.4% increase from July 2023. Can you believe that nearly one in five homes on the market at the end of the month were listed for over $1 million?

In July, there were 2,228 properties for sale in NH, a 29% increase from last year. However, that’s still almost 10,000 fewer homes than were on the market in July 2014. As reported by the New Hampshire

Association of Realtors, even though inventory has increased somewhat over the past two years, we only have about a 2.2-month supply of housing inventory. A balanced market would be more like a five to 5.5-month supply in NH.

The one statistic that surprised me was the percentage of the listing price received in July 2024. It amounted to 101.6%, which was down by 0.9% over the previous year; however still over the listing price. NH remains very solid compared to the rest of the country.

When I looked up Belknap County, we had a decrease of 13.5% in sales activity for July 2024 compared to July 2023; however the median sales price increased 6.3% to $537,000 for the same month over 2023, and the sale volume was up 10.3% for the county.

Carrol County, however, has an increase in closed sales of 21.7% in July 2024 vs. July 2023, and the median sales price jumped to $543,875, resulting in a 28% increase for July over the previous year.

On Clever.com, NH real estate market 2024 trends, their report reflected a median sales price of $537,400 for NH, ranking it No. 11 out of 50 states, which was 25.5% higher than the national average. Median days on the market was recorded at 24 days, ranking New Hampshire No. 3 out of 50 states with a 41.8% shorter timeline to sell a home.

So, how do we look for the balance of 2024 in New Hampshire and the Lakes Region’s real estate market? It appears the housing market might finally be entering a transitional phase. There are signs that activity could heat up in early fall if mortgage rates continue to plunge to their lowest level in roughly 15 months, and hopefully, we continue to receive much-needed resale inventory in our region, giving buyers more options. We need to see renewed momentum once mortgage rates drop enough to ease affordability challenges and incentivize homeowners locked in at low rates to move so inventory grows substantially to meet the demand we have here in the Lakes Region and throughout NH.

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This article was written by Frank Roche, president of Roche Realty Group with offices in Meredith and Laconia, and can be reached at 603-279-7046. Visit rocherealty.com to learn more about the Lakes Region and its real estate market.