The residential real estate market started 2025 pretty much the way it exited 2024 — with high prices and limited supply. And it’s not likely to change for the foreseeable future.
“One month may not prove a trend, but this is the third month in a row of a double-digit increase,” said Susan Cole, president of New Hampshire Association of Realtors’ (NHAR) Executive Committee, reacting to January data that showed a median sales price of $502,500 for a single-family home, a 12.9% increase over the previous year.
“By any metric we are not seeing New Hampshire’s housing market materially change from what has occurred over the past four years. There is still historically low inventory and higher prices,” Cole added.
On the commercial real estate side of the ledger, the watchword is “stable” for both office space and for industrial/warehouse, according to two new reports.
The NHAR market report for January showed that the median price for a single-family home in the Granite State remained more than half a million dollars for the 11th month in a row, a trend that started in March of last year.
The $502,500 recorded in January, while almost 13% more than January 2024, was less than the $510,000 recorded in December 2024.
For a residential condominium/townhouse, the January median price was $427,500, 0.6% less than January 2024 and almost 3% less than in December.
The companion issue, as cited by Cole, continues to be supply as calculated by how much inventory is available per month.
A balanced real estate market normally has a months supply of between four and six months.
The months supply in January for a house, according to the NHAR data, was 1.5, a 15.4% jump over a year ago. The months supply for a condo was 1.7%, a hike of 6.3%.
To help the supply, the NHAR continues to advocate for legislation that will make construction of new homes less restrictive.
“If New Hampshire is going to offer affordable housing to young families and workers while preserving its rural character, it will be important to revisit zoning policies,” said Cole. “New Hampshire will need to reduce the large-lot zoning restrictions that produce unaffordable housing and low-density sprawl.”
Cole said the NHAR is keeping an eye on HB 459, which limits lot size minimums in local zoning laws. For example, this bill prohibits a minimum lot size of more than 22,000 square feet for single-family homes serviced by municipal or community sewer infrastructure.
Another is SB 84, which, similarly, sets maximum lot size requirements for single-family homes, depending on the availability of municipal or community sewer and water infrastructure. The bill would generally block zoning laws that require lot sizes larger than 66,000 square feet, which is about 1.5 acres.
Cole said both pieces of legislation “protect the health and safety of the community while allowing for smaller, more affordable developable lots.”
“Thoughtful adjustments like this to the zoning regulations will help ease the housing shortage by allowing property owners more flexibility to develop appropriate-sized lots. The government has played a significant role in making homes more expensive and the only way out of our current crisis is to lessen the regulatory burden on property owners,” she added. “Many buyers do not want or need one, two or three acres of land and these zoning changes will be one tool that we can use to fix our housing shortage so that we continue to be the economic hub of New England.”
Here are the median house prices in January for each of the state’s 10 counties:
- Belknap $500,000
- Carroll $429,000
- Cheshire $375,000
- Coos $312,000
- Grafton $409,950
- Hillsborough $525,000
- Merrimack $490,000
- Rockingham $670,000
- Strafford $450,000
- Sullivan $382,450
Here are the median condo prices in January by county:
- Belknap $370,000
- Carroll $590,000
- Cheshire $315,000
- Coos $415,000
- Grafton $495,000
- Hillsborough $360,000
- Merrimack $340,000
- Rockingham $499,000
- Strafford $355,000
- Sullivan $630,000 (based on the sale of one condo)
The commercial reports for the fourth quarter of 2024 were written by Kristie Russell, research manager for Colliers, the commercial real estate brokerage with offices in New Hampshire and Maine.
While the post-COVID vacancy rate for office space has been relatively high (as businesses adapted to hybrid situations where not all employees come to the office), according to Russell, “The New Hampshire office market showed signs of stabilization in 2024, with the vacancy rate rising by just 0.2% year-over-year to finish the fourth quarter at 13.8%.”
“This marks the smallest annual increase in two years, suggesting a potential leveling-off in market conditions,” she added. “Class A vacancy statewide remained steady, supported by stability in the Concord, Manchester and Nashua submarkets.”
One of the biggest transactions in Q4 2024 included the sale of the former Lighthouse Credit Union headquarters on Borthwick Avenue in Portsmouth for $8.9 million to Stonefish, a development and real estate investment company. In Rochester, a Class A office building was sold for $1.95 million for redevelopment into a hotel.
New Hampshire’s industrial market has been experiencing a steady increase in vacancy starting in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to Russell, because of new construction that addressed the dearth of industrial/warehouse space in prior quarters.
“The vacancy rate has started to stabilize in the second half of 2024, ending the year at 5.4%, hopefully marking a potential turning point for the market as it adjusts to the influx of new space,” said Russell.
Among the significant transactions involving industrial/commercial space was the announcement by Analogic that it will relocate from Massachusetts to roughly 200,000 square feet of flex space at 9 Northeastern Boulevard in Salem.
Analogic is a major health care and security technology company that is expected to bring about 500 jobs to the state.
