New Hampshire gets a C- as a grade in a new nationwide ranking of affordability and homebuilding pace.
The grade from Realtor.com puts the Granite State in 41st place among all states and the District of Columbia when scored on the basis of house affordability, median price, median household income and building permits for new home construction in 2024.
At the top, with an A grade, is South Carolina. At the very bottom, with an F, is Rhode Island. Among the other New England states, Maine was 27th with a grade of C, Vermont was 39th with a grade of C-, Connecticut was 46th with a grade of F, and Massachusetts was 50th with a grade of F.
“The lack of availability and high prices of land to be developed can partly explain the Northeast’s shortcomings when it comes to homebuilding,” said the Realtor.com report card.
In specifically cited municipal zoning as a barrier to residential homebuilding, something New Hampshire policymakers are trying to address with several new laws passed by the 2025 Legislature and signed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte.
The median price of a single-family home in NH hit $565,000 in June, an all-time high. It dropped to $545,000 in July.
“If we let America build homes, we can deliver the inventory that is missing from the market and make it more accessible to all Americans, ultimately keeping a key cornerstone of the American dream alive for this generation and the next,” the Realtor.com report said.
New Hampshire’s median price for a single-family home eased somewhat in July.
According to the latest data from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors, the median price for a house was $545,000, an improvement over the record high price of $565,000 that was established in June.
But the July median is still a 5.7% increase over July 2024’s median of $530,000.
“Clearly, the high demand for housing in New Hampshire is unchanged as median days on the market is still about a week. Critically, the months supply is stalled at 2.5 months. That means demand is absorbing that additional housing supply and keeping prices up,” said Susan Cole, NHAR president and owner/broker of Susan Cole Realty in Lebanon.
According to Cole, the market has picked up in activity with more homes on the market and more closings compared to prior months.
She said New Hampshire is seeing more homes for sale than it has over the previous four years. “We had 2,434 homes on the market in July 2025 while in July 2024 there were 1,894. It is still a far cry from the 4,935 in July 2019 or the 8,000 homes for sale in July 2016, the last time we had a balanced housing market,” she said.
“Pending sales are up 20% which is good news and that suggests we will see better closing data in the months ahead, but even as that figure is 20% higher than this time last year, it is still quite low compared to historical numbers,” she added.
Cole, like many others, is eyeing what happens with future interest rates.
“We are all waiting to see what happens with mortgage rates, which have not moved much this spring and summer,” she said. “There is an expectation that they might come down closer to 6%, which will certainly help, but it won’t be a cure-all for these stubbornly high prices.”
The NHAR has credited policymakers for initiatives this year in new laws meant to ease zoning that more often than not is meant to limit residential housing development.
They include:
With regard to zoning, the Realtor.com report noted: “If we let America build homes, we can deliver the inventory that is missing from the market and make it more accessible to all Americans, ultimately keeping a key cornerstone of the American dream alive for this generation and the next.”
So far in 2025, according to NHAR data, the median price for a house is 4.9% more than the same period last year, while the median price for a townhouse/condominium is trending 3.7% more seven months into the year.
On the commercial side of the real estate market, a new report from brokerage Colliers International for the second quarter of 2025 says the statewide vacancy rate for office buildings remains steady at 13.4%. While vacancy rates haven’t changed much, the average asking rate dropped slightly by 0.6% in a year over year comparison.
“The market is buoyed by steady demand for smaller spaces (under 5,000 SF) from medical and financial services users across the state,” said Kristie Russell, research manager for Colliers in New Hampshire and author of the report.
She also noted: “Manchester has successfully maintained a low vacancy rate through office-to-residential conversions, a strategy that may be replicated in other submarkets like Dover.”
A separate Colliers report on industrial/manufacturing space says the market remains very tight with the second quarter statewide vacancy rate coming in at 5.2%. The asking price has dropped by 6.2%, according to the report.
“While manufacturing closures in Portsmouth and Dover created temporary softness, the core I-93 and Route 3 corridors continue to showcase the market’s fundamental strength,” Russell wrote in her report.
The NHAR said the affordability index for July was 55, meaning the average earning household in the state has only 55% of the finances needed to afford a single-family home here. The affordability index for a condo stood at 71.
The Seacoast market median price is nearing $1 million, according to the most recent data from the Seacoast Board of Realtors.
It reported a single-family median price of $905,500, up 13.8 percent from last year and the highest monthly median since June 2024’s record of $922,500.
Here are the NHAR’s July single-family home median prices for each of the state’s 10 counties in July:
Belknap $462,500
Carroll $465,000
Cheshire $400,500
Coos $240,000
Grafton $475,000
Hillsborough $585,500
Merrimack $517,500
Rockingham $669,000
Strafford $490,000
Sullivan $400,000
Here are the July median prices for condos by county:
Belknap $439,250
Carroll $425,000
Cheshire $328,000
Coos $504,500
Grafton $305,000
Hillsborough $400,000
Merrimack $385,000
Rockingham $505,000
Strafford $421,400
Sullivan $499,000
James “Jim” Loomis, co-founder of Portsmouth-based Bottomline Technologies, passed away on Sept. 6 in his hometown of Dover after a period of declining health. He was 75. After its creation in 1989 with business partner Daniel McGurl, Bottomline became a worldwide leader in automated business payments and cash management.
The nonprofit and ReVision Energy expand renewable energy portfolio with new solar panels across five properties in the Monadnock Region
New Hampshire’s $4B outdoor economy supports 32,000 jobs and ranks 8th in the nation.
A nearly $4.6 million contract has been awarded for the construction of a five-mile median barrier on Interstate 95 in New Hampshire with the goal to prevent highway deaths.
While home prices might be moderating in other parts of the country, the median price of a single-family house in New Hampshire rose to $550,000 in August, the second highest price point this current year. That price is just $3,000 more than the $547,000 recorded in July, but it is $47,500 more than January’s $502,500. The highest median price in 2025 was $569,450, recorded in June and the most ever recorded in the state.
ApprenticeshipNH has partnered with Associated Builders and Contractors of New Hampshire/Vermont and Elm Grove Companies to launch New Hampshire’s first registered apprenticeship program (RAP) for maintenance technicians
Meet Samii, the mannequin who is bedridden in the AI Simulation Lab, one of the drawing cards to the new $32 million home of the Jean School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Saint Anselm College.
The unstoppable New Hampshire economy of the post-COVID years is running into economic headwinds of higher unemployment and inflation, a nonpartisan economic research firm said in late August. No definitive evidence points to a recession, the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute said in an economic issues brief.
Free credentialing program is designed to boost timber industry workforce
