For a full year now, the median price of a single-family home in New Hampshire has been a half million dollars or more.
The year-long trend started in March 2024, with the New Hampshire Association of Realtors (NHAR) reporting the median price of a single-family home had reached an historic $500,000. As of March 2025, the price was $525,000. And, in between, it didn’t drop below the half million dollar mark.
In that time span — March 2024 to March 2025 — the median price of a single-family home has increased by 4.9%.
Are $500,000+ median prices the new normal in New Hampshire?
“We avoid making specific market predictions, but considering that dramatic drop in supply, it’s hard to imagine median prices falling below that $500,000 threshold any time soon,” said Susan Cole, NHAR president and owner/broker of Susan Cole Realty Group in Lebanon.
“This crisis has been decades in the making,” she added, “and it will take a sustained focus on long-term solutions to dig us out.”
The crisis is multi-pronged. A limited supply of housing stock in New Hampshire versus strong demand led to the rising prices. The rising prices have affected affordability, particularly among the working-class/middle-income sector.
The limited supply prong is what Cole and the NHAR, along with other stakeholders across the state, have been pushing to rectify, in part, by pushing the state Legislature to enact laws that force local cities and towns to ease purposely restrictive zoning bylaws, thereby allowing more housing development.
“We need to allow people to build on smaller, less expensive lots, create opportunities for seniors and families by allowing for accessory dwelling units, and end the mandates which create sprawl and the loss of open space,” said Cole.
Some 30 separate pieces of legislation in the current session address housing in some way, affecting renters, home purchasers, developers and municipalities.
One piece of legislation (HB 577), for example, expands on the current law that allows, by right, a homeowner to add an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) onto their existing structure. HB 577 expands that to allow by right a detached ADU on a residential property. While communities have to allow attached ADUs, some communities specifically prohibit detached ADUs.
Another bill would block zoning laws that require lot sizes larger than 66,000 square feet, which is about 1.5 acres.
“We have seen progress,” said Cole. “Both the House and Senate have passed meaningful bills which will make housing more affordable and available for New Hampshire residents. We’re hopeful this momentum will continue and begin the slow climb back toward housing affordability.”
Housing affordability is measured using an index that, at 100, assumes a median-earning family can afford to purchase an average-priced home in a particular area. The lower the index from 100, the less affordable the market is.
For New Hampshire in March, according to the latest NHAR data, the affordability index was 58 for a single-family home, 79 for a residential condo/townhouse. The last time the affordability index in New Hampshire was 100 for a house was in early 2022.
The NHAR data also illustrates the supply and demand issue with what’s called the months’ supply of inventory.
“This sustained escalation in pricing is a matter of supply and demand. New Hampshire currently has 1.2 months’ supply of inventory, meaning the amount of time it would take to sell off the current housing stock at the current rate of sales,” Cole explained. “We consider 5-7 months’ supply a balanced market, and the last time we saw five months or more was October 2016 – more than eight years ago. At that time, New Hampshire had over 7,300 single-family homes on the market. There were 1,245 at the end of March 2025, an 83% decrease.”
The high cost of homes here has put the Granite State as having among the highest median prices in the country. Using monthly housing market data from Redfin, Bankrate.com puts New Hampshire at 14th (tied with Nevada) as of April 8:
Median single-family home prices, by state top 20
| Hawaii | $975,500 |
| District of Columbia | $920,000 |
| California | $866,100 |
| Massachusetts | $749,900 |
| Washington | $658,700 |
| Colorado | $640,000 |
| Utah | $588,500 |
| New York | $576,100 |
| Montana | $528,000 |
| New Jersey | $526,500 |
| Oregon | $521,500 |
| New Hampshire | $502,300 |
| Maryland | $496,500 |
| Nevada | $496,000 |
| Rhode Island | $484,800 |
| Idaho | $474,700 |
| Arizona | $470,200 |
| Connecticut | $466,000 |
| Virginia | $457,500 |
| Wyoming | $450,000 |
“It is true that a half-million dollars or more is increasingly becoming the new normal for single-family homes in New Hampshire,” said Cole. “The $525,000 median price in March is the highest ever for the month. It marks 61 consecutive months of year-over-year price increases in New Hampshire, and 13 straight months with the median price above $500,000.”
By county, here are the March median prices for a single-family home:
- Belknap $453,000
- Carroll $525,000
- Cheshire $374,900
- Coos $210,000
- Grafton $424,000
- Hillsborough $558,000
- Merrimack $485,000
- Rockingham $639,900
- Strafford $517,500
- Sullivan $377,500
- Entire State $525,000
By county, here are the March median prices for a condo/townhouse:
- Belknap $455,000
- Carroll $465,000
- Cheshire $340,000
- Coos $759,000
- Grafton $384,500
- Hillsborough $389,999
- Merrimack $351,000
- Rockingham $554,000
- Strafford $354,000
- Sullivan $422,500
- Entire State $425,000
Rockingham County has consistently been the priciest in the state, driven by the high cost of homes on the Seacoast.
The March single-family median sale price there in March was $849,950, up 6.9% from a year ago, according to the Seacoast Board of Realtors. It takes its data from 13 sample communities: Exeter, Greenland, Hampton, Hampton Falls, New Castle, Newfields, Newington, North Hampton, Newmarket, Portsmouth, Rye, Seabrook and Stratham.
The Seacoast median prices were driven by the fact that there were 16 house transactions of $1 million or more.
