Influx of wealthier buyers and ever-rising prices have made it almost impossible for average-income Granite Staters to enter housing market
By Jon Decker, Granite State News Collaborative
First-time homebuyers and others who are earning the average wage in New Hampshire and are hoping to buy a home have essentially been shut out of the housing market — and have been for several years, with apparently no end in sight to their plight.
In fact, even middle- and higher-income renter households are finding it difficult to buy a home.
With sale prices in New Hampshire remaining at record highs — the median price of a single-family home has been above $500,000 since April 2024 — the relatively few homes on the market are being gobbled up almost exclusively by high-income earners from out of state, prior homeowners, and people with access to generational wealth. And these buyers often rely on cash purchases, allowing them to outcompete people who need financing to buy a home.
The median price of a single-family home in New Hampshire jumped by over 71% between 2019 and 2024, according to the N.H. Association of Realtors. Prices are so high that the state’s housing affordability index is now 59, meaning that a buyer earning the median household income has only 59% of the money needed to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced single-family home.
According to an analysis from the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute, in 2023 one-fourth of all New Hampshire households had incomes of less than $50,000 per year. Another 14% earned between $50,000 and $74,999, the analysis found. That means nearly 40% of New Hampshire’s approximately 547,000 households have incomes below the median of $96,838.
At one point, according to Dave Cummings, vice president of communications for the Realtors association, median household income was double the amount needed to get a mortgage. Now, he said, the current affordability index is “as low as we’ve ever seen it.”
But even though so many potential buyers are priced out of home ownership, New Hampshire homes are still selling fast. According to the Realtors, there was only a 1.7-month inventory of single-family homes on the market, meaning it would take less than two months for the available homes to be sold if no new homes were to come onto the market.
“A balanced market would be about five to seven months of supply,” Cummings said. “The last time we saw a balanced market was October of 2016 and that was five months. Since then it’s been below two months supply, which is an incredible seller’s market, but it’s not a healthy market for anyone entering the housing market, particularly if you don’t have something to sell to gain some equity.”
Who are the buyers?
Such high prices and quick sales raise the question: Who is actually buying homes in New Hampshire?
“Most [of the buyers] are coming up from Massachusetts, because that’s where the money is,” said Conway Realtor Dave Haines. “Unfortunately, local people are pretty much priced out of the market.”
A line of homes rests at the foot of the White Mountains in Conway.With a median single-family home priced at over $437,000, ‘local people are pretty much priced out of the market,’ says Realtor Dave Haines. Most of the buyers, he adds, are paying cash for their new homes. (Photo by Jon Decker)
Haines has been selling homes in the Mount Washington Valley area for five decades and he lives just 150 yards from his childhood home in Conway. In those 50 years, he’s seen homes grow increasingly unaffordable for locals.
“When the price moved up over $400,000, it was out of reach for most everyone with wages, " Haines said, but the buyers he has worked with — whether retired or pre-retirement — haven’t resorted to financing their purchase, even for the most expensive homes.
According to Haines, with decades of savings, pensions and equity built up in their first homes, many buyers are paying cash, making it even harder for people who need financing to compete.
“I’ve only had just a handful last year that were financed,” Haines said. “The majority of everything was cash. The one that I closed last week was cash, and the one this week is cash.”
Cash is also king in the Lakes Region, according to veteran Realtor Frank Roche, who said at least half of his recent sales were in greenbacks.
“They’ll come in and pay cash, but that doesn't mean they won’t refinance them later,” Roche said. “It’s hard to say how many people stay in that position, but we’re fortunate. Massachusetts is our strongest market, and we get a good number of people from New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.”
While more rural areas like Carroll County are seeing an influx of older buyers, the Lakes Region is a little bit more of a mixed bag.
“It’s mostly older folks, but we do get some younger people,” Roche said. “There’s lots of wealth in the Boston area. Let’s say these families have invested in the stock market; they’ll parlay that to their children. Many have inherited wealth or trusts.”
Other buyers are second-home or condo owners who were able to sell their previous properties and move into their vacation homes full time, said Roche. Members of America’s elite have also purchased multimillion-dollar properties along Lake Winnipesaukee’s shore.
“The president of Black & Decker is here with a few trophy homes in Winnipesaukee,” Roche said. “The president of Moderna bought a house, the Marriott family. There are many CEOs that have purchased property.”
Luxury recreational areas like the Lakes Region have also been inundated with vacation and short-term rentals, putting a further squeeze on housing stock while boosting income for property owners.
“There’s been a lot of investors who have purchased single-family homes for Airbnb and VRBO sites — they're generating very attractive returns because they are doing weekly rentals, and shorter than that,” Roche said. “There’s benefits but major disadvantages. You provide more housing for people who want to recreate, but it can change the culture of the neighborhood, and it definitely takes away product from year-round residents.”
Some towns in the Lakes Region and elsewhere have started to crack down on short-term rentals through local ordinances, but thousands of properties are still available throughout the state on VRBO and Airbnb alone.
Another buyer archetype showing up in the Lakes Region and beyond is the returning Granite Stater. Some are driven by nostalgia, others by climate change or a desire to live closer to family — a reversal of the classic New Hampshire-to-Florida retirement pipeline.
“I was puzzled myself last year because I kept talking to people from southern states like Florida and the Carolinas,” said Suzanne Damon, a veteran Realtor operating in the Manchester area. “The fact is, in Florida, costs to insure property are almost the same as your mortgage, so we’re seeing people move back from Florida to New Hampshire — the grandkids are here, the family is here.”
Damon also cited the pandemic as a major driver for returning retirees.
“Think about mom and dad getting sick and the kids not there to help,” Damon said. “With travel restrictions, there's really no one there to help. People got nervous.”
Damon’s home turf of Manchester is seeing much more than returning snowbirds cornering the market. The city’s proximity to Boston and post-pandemic pressures further cemented the Queen City as a commuter town.
In addition, “what I hear is many millennials moving into this immediate area are in the work-from-home industry — tech, hospital, medical tech people,” Damon said.
Manchester’s average home price of about $423,000 is about half of Boston’s median of $825,000, allowing for easy cash purchases when homeowners sell.
“We are selling homes very well — my average time is about 14 days, which is nothing in terms of time frame,” Damon said. The mortgage payment on an average home in Damon’s area runs about $3,300 a month, roughly 40% of the local median household income of $94,000.
“Even with that $3,300 monthly payment, it’s still more affordable than being in Massachusetts, and they can commute backwards. That puts pressure on affordable towns like Derry, Merrimack and Manchester,” she said.
Wealthier newcomers
Many of the new commuter and remote workers were pandemic-era refugees enticed by the Granite State’s access to outdoor recreation and a general sense of open space. Their arrival contributed to a significant increase in the state’s average income, according to a 2025 report from the UNH Carsey School of Public Policy.
“When their ability to work from home increased, a significant number moved to their second homes, or if their parents had a second home. I think that’s part of why there was this big surge of income in New Hampshire,” said Kenneth Johnson, the Carsey School’s senior demographer and one of the report’s authors.
According to the Carsey report “Domestic Migrants and Dollars Flowed to New Hampshire During the Pandemic,” people migrating to New Hampshire from 2020 to 2022 earned, on average, $111,000 a year, compared to $87,000 for households leaving the state. Although most of the home purchases appear to be made by older individuals closer to retirement age, Johnson’s work shows that a lot more younger people are moving into New Hampshire than meets the eye.
“New Hampshire tends to gain people in their 30s and 40s with kids, and has a modest influx of older people,” Johnson explained. “The state has a significant outflow of older people to the south, but it still has a net pretty close to zero because it's also getting older adults moving into the Lakes Region and vacation areas in the state. Overall, it's gaining people in their 30s to early 50s.”
Johnson added that, if New Hampshire loses any population, it’s people in the 20-to-29 age group, but in the last few years, the state had “a very modest net gain” even among that cohort.
Limited opportunities
Even among working-age buyers who might not have built up significant equity, Manchester Realtor Damon said, cash purchases are quite common in her market as well — a real estate market that recently was named the hottest in the country by Zillow, the online real estate marketplace.
“In addition to competitive offers, I’m seeing mom and dad pulling out equity to pay cash for the kids’ home so they can turn around and get a mortgage,” Damon said. “We definitely have a good inside population moving from apartments, parents' basements into people’s homes in our local market.”
With an average time on market of 14 days, it is especially difficult for first-time buyers to mobilize funds quickly enough to compete with cash offers for a home.
“Some [first-time buyers] have been out for a couple of years and have been frustrated, and sometimes they throw in the towel,” Damon said. “But in terms of affordability, you can only go up so high. Two years ago, I would have 10 to 15 offers [on a home]; now it’s two to three, so things are starting to balance out with inventory and pricing.”
But she added that there is some hope for lower-income or first-time buyers.
While the standard down payment is usually 20% of the sale price, “New Hampshire Housing has a fine program, which is state-backed with funds from banks and other lenders, and there are programs with 100% financing, some with 3.5% down, there are grants out there,” Damon said. “They just really need to connect [buyers] with those sources. In these institutions, they don’t really have a marketing budget, and they depend on Realtors to spread the word, so I think I have a responsibility and due diligence.”
However, funding and loans aside, New Hampshire has also long suffered from a lack of inventory to meet demand. Based on current population growth trends, a 2023 New Hampshire Housing report estimated that the state will need 60,000 more units by 2030 and 90,000 by 2024. The shortage is currently 23,500 units, according to New Hampshire Housing, further increasing demand and thus raising prices, all the while attracting wealthier populations throughout the Granite State.
“This is a story that is playing across the states,” Johnson said. “There is concern about who’s moving in. Who's going to be the volunteer firefighters, paramedics, who's going to coach Little League, are there going to be enough kids in schools?”
A luxury property along the waters of Lake Winnipesaukee, one of the many of its kind that have attracted wealthy buyers to the Lakes Region. (Photo by Jon Decker)
“I’m worried, " said Lakes Realtor Frank Roche, "because we’re one of the top three oldest states. We are an aging population, and one of our biggest problems in the Lakes Region is labor supply.”
Many of the service jobs that make these communities work, such as food service, hospitality roles, EMTs and firefighters, pay well below even the median household income, and far below what’s needed to afford a home.
“You can take Auburn, Candia, Hooksett — towns with significant socioeconomic standing with higher incomes — and those are the people saying ‘I don’t want to bring in the $50,000 blue-collar workers,’” Damon said. “What my $150,000 worker doesn't understand is that we have to have blue-collar and our entry-level workers to run these businesses. You’re not going to have a suit to put on if you don’t have entry-level people working.”
Johnson, however, pointed out that the influx of wealthier, higher-educated migrants cuts both ways.
“The people who are coming in are coming here because they like it and want to be there, and many of them bring experience in bureaucracies and how to get things done in big organizations,” Johnson said
Johnson, a Lakes Region resident, gave the example of a chief financial officer of a Fortune 100 company who had retired to the area and was elected treasurer of the town he moved to. “There’s no way we could have gotten someone with that kind of expertise to do this job, but he lives there and is part of the community and we get that expertise,” Johnson said.
But while talented and experienced individuals have the potential to uplift the community, the natural effects of an ever-growing market are causing concern, even among experienced Realtors like Roche.
“Are we going to keep growing at these numbers in leaps in bounds?” Roche asked. “It has to stop at some point and readjust. It always does. It did in the ’80s, ’90s, and 2008.”
Citing the infusion of COVID funds stimulus and other forms of government spending in recent years, he said, “I think the government pumped a ton of helium into the country, and now we’re at a point where we’ve got to sustain ourselves. I think we’re at a plateau where we have to watch the accelerator.”
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.