New Hampshire real estate: How people from Mass. drive up prices – The Boston Globe

Right here’s one various to the actual property affordability disaster in Massachusetts: Go away.

Over the previous couple of years, extra individuals have been shifting out of Massachusetts than shifting in. And one of the well-liked locations is New Hampshire, the land of a decrease price of residing, no gross sales tax, and no revenue tax (property taxes are sometimes larger, although).

“Homes are extra reasonably priced than they’re in Massachusetts,” says Invoice Weidacher, working companion of Keller Williams Realty Metropolitan, which has places of work in Bedford, Londonderry, Keene, and Harmony, New Hampshire. “And folks can nonetheless work in Massachusetts fairly simply and personal a house in Southern New Hampshire.”

If they’ll discover one, that’s. Over the previous 5 years, the common stock of single-family properties on the market statewide plummeted 70 p.c, from 5,926 to only 1,791. In the meantime, excessive demand pushed the statewide median from $266,000 in 2017 to $440,000 in 2022, in keeping with the New Hampshire Affiliation of Realtors. (Not nice for patrons, however that’s nonetheless 25 p.c decrease than the Massachusetts median of $550,000.)

One other factor New Hampshire doesn’t have loads of: range. The state inhabitants is 1.9 p.c Black, for instance, and 4.3 p.c Hispanic or Latino, in keeping with the 2020 Census. Development in youthful populations of individuals of colour within the state will hopefully begin to change that, with an estimated 16 to 18 p.c of the under-18 inhabitants figuring out as BIPOC and/or Hispanic. Weidacher says he’s additionally been speaking with the NAACP about the way to diversify the pool of actual property brokers. “I simply imagine that the realtor group may very well be higher served with range, in order for you higher range in housing,” he says.

One of many hottest New Hampshire spots is Hillsborough County, which incorporates Manchester and Nashua. Greater than 4,000 Massachusetts residents moved to the county in 2020, in keeping with the Pioneer Institute, a Boston suppose tank. Consumers are drawn to locations like Goffstown, a city identified for its charming middle, good colleges, Saint Anselm Faculty, and the Annual Large Pumpkin Regatta on the Piscataquog River. It’s a 10-minute commute to Manchester and about an hour and quarter-hour to Boston down Interstate 93.

The curiosity in Goffstown is altering the real-estate figures quick. The median value of a single-family — $441,000 — is up 65 p.c since 2017, and the common variety of days available on the market has dropped from 35 to 10, in accordance the state realtors affiliation.

One cause for Goffstown’s reputation is that it’s good for households, says Carroll Berg III, 38, whose dad and mom moved to the city from Massachusetts almost 40 years in the past to begin their household. He’s a graphic designer with a advertising firm — he lived and labored in Portland, Maine, for a stint, earlier than returning to Goffstown — and his spouse, Marissa, 36, works for an affiliation of companies serving adults with developmental disabilities and volunteers with the Fundamental Road enterprise group. They personal an 1888 house within the village and each their kids, ages 9 and 15, go to Goffstown colleges. They just like the city’s walkability, comfort, and group spirit.

“There’s all the time one thing happening,” Berg says. He ticks off occasions comparable to Springfest, with its enterprise exposition and children carnival, in addition to the pumpkin regatta, which includes paddling an enormous pumpkin down the river. “We’re 20 minutes from Pats Peak, which is a fairly ski space. So there’s winter stuff to do. Glen Lake — you possibly can skate on it in order for you. You possibly can swim in it. That’s 5 minutes down the highway.”

The city is nice for youths, Marissa Berg says. It has a busy kids’s sports activities scene — Goffstown narrowly misplaced to Harmony for the Little League state championship final 12 months — and an old style vibe. “Simply listening to folks reminisce concerning the instances when the children would simply run round and play within the neighborhood till the road lights got here on,” she says. “It’s [still] very, very very like that.”

Susan Moeller is a daily contributor to the Globe Journal. Ship feedback to journal@globe.com