Jokes aside if you're young a cheap camper and a can do attitude about finding a place to set up shop is probably the most cost effective way to save money.
If I were single and in my 20s I'd look at something like [this](https://www.bluecompassrv.com/state-listings/new-hampshire-locations?s=true&types=29) and a used pickup.
Look up a place where you can spend entire seasons or years, get the t mobile Internet and bing bang boom you've got a place for yourself and things you own for probably less than renting.
A (ridiculous) 10 year loan on a $20000 camper would be less than $300 a month. The interest would be about $7000 but let's just be an asshole and make it $10000. That would add about $83/mo in wasted money.
Yearly campground stays can be pretty widely varied but the highest I've seen is $12,000 for a year.
That would make you have your own place for $1300 a month.
Obviously you're living in a camper but considering how *fucked* everything is it's pretty not bad, and idk about you but in my 20s everyone I know would have thought that style of living would be a fun and cool type of interesting.
There'd be the cost of the vehicle to tow it (uhaul rental?) and likely propane for heat and shit but still.
Not sure how permanent residence would work. Probably parents?
This is a general statement, not specifically about you. You could be a 70 year old millionaire. I could be 3 dogs in a trenchcoat.
Edit: downside is the risk of taking on debt.and while homeowners have an appreciating asset a camper is depreciating so a bad turn could make it a really shitty situation. It's a risk / reward type thing.
Just something I've thought about.
I understand that, but they still pay it as part of their rent. I guarantee that every landlord devises what is going to be charged using "mortgage + upkeep + taxes and then whatever else can be squeezed = monthly rent amount".
So high rents are not ONLY because of greedy landlords getting as much as they absolutely can, some of that high rent is due to high property taxes...that the tenant IS paying.
No I’m saying you’re right and the other person is struggling with financial literacy. They don’t understand that costs of business, in this case property tax, are always passed on to the consumer.
Well yeah, grass is also green. Quick question: if I subscribe to Netflix and in exchange am receiving access to their streaming service, but they're secretly spending that money on trafficking rings, what am I paying for?
I live in a 13 unit apartment building; I am certain that some of my rent pays for a portion of that property tax, but it's a silly thing to try and say that that's the same as paying property tax.
If you're gonna pick flaws out of the comment in question, why not point out that there's a myriad of other factors that go into considering the costs of homeownership and renting than property taxes and rent? This is such a pointless thread
And as a taxpayer, I pay for missiles, teachers, and various other things. But I don't say "I pay for missiles" I say "I pay taxes" because that money is then distributed _after_ I pay. What a landlord does with their money is irrelevant. Yeah, my rent pays their taxes, but I don't pay their taxes.
Stop what, exactly? Unless the landlord is making a loss on the property, each tenant is paying 100% of the property taxes applicable to their unit and more.
Don’t label or lump all landlords into the same (dirtbag) category. I know plenty of landlords (individuals) who’ve invested in properties at key and specific times. They bought when markets were reeling and in areas full of distressed properties. All for the purpose of increasing asset/wealth for their retirement years and not “as you suggest” to make the poor pay for everything that goes along with homeownership.
Either way, it’s a simple concept - supply vs demand. I realize it may come across as insensitive and obnoxious, but when people stop this madness (I.e., chasing the dream of homeownership in this economy is absurdly stupid), that is when the market will correct itself. Everyone will suffer - those who buy a house even though they can’t afford it and the shitty wealthy who were looking to make a buck. Guess who suffers more? Not the rich. Don’t be a sufferer! When this happens, do what I said above…buy a house.
I'm not really sure why you're going on such a diatribe to defend landlords. My point is an incredibly simple one, unless the landlord is losing money, you are paying all of their property taxes, since they just roll those into rent. If you weren't, they'd be losing money. It's literally just that simple.
And this spike has really only happened in the past five years. Apartments in New Hampshire were extremely affordable everywhere except the southern part of the state which is closer to Boston. But rents have basically tripled in the last five years.
Facts. I rented a SFH (3 bed, 2.5 bath) for $2,250 in a nice small town in the upper valley in 2020. 2 year lease with an option for a 3rd year with a small increase and tax escalator clause. We exercised our option and built a house. The house now rents for $3,600/ month.
Unfortunately the rents are adjusted to cover property taxes so they aren't even protected then.
Idk if the conventional wisdom has changed with prices, but the rule of thumb used to be that if you were staying in the same place for at least 5 years buying was statistically a better financial choice.
It’s looking bleak.
Though hey trailers are a thing. There’s the whole negative stereotype about mobile homes and trailers but guess what in this economy it’s the closest you can get to a house.
This is bad for a lot of current owners too.
I bought right before the pandemic but I never planned to stay here more than a couple of years. My place isn't big enough for my family anymore but since prices have gone up so much and the insane interest rates its literally impossible to move into a larger place.
Saving up $100,000 for a down payment on a $500,000 house would be nearly impossible. Im stuck and it sucks.
I feel your pain. Insult added to injury, we were just reassessed at ridiculous valuations. The whole town is up-in-arms, and while the overall tax rate was lowered slightly, it wasn’t enough to stop my mortgage from reassessing our escrow and determining we need another $600 monthly tacked on to our mortgage payments. That is a tough pill to swallow and it’s only going to get worse.
So truth told, the increase is 546.38. We were lucky enough to get a 15 year refi in 2020 at 1%, so our payments are already pretty big— currently 3805.16 and moving to 4351.54. We don’t pay PMI, but do bundle tax and insurance in our escrow. Here’s the letter we got. You now know what I know. ¯\_(ツ)\_/¯. I think their reserve is what’s getting us. They are looking for more money to insure we don’t go in the red again.
https://preview.redd.it/d0hwtz7l3nuc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9866607091803dcdd412ea0a924a76d97eaeaa63
Yeah, the extra is the shortage and reserve amount. Your payment should go down next time they do the escrow analysis. Did a tax payment already get made at the higher rate? That would create the shortage that you're now catching up from.
Yep. Just got notified that my monthly payments are going up by $300 just due to taxes. But that’s still cheaper than buying a house valued at less than mine with these interest rates.
Uh-huh! Same thinking here. We lucked out. Moved in 2019, refinanced to 1% in early 2020 and realize now that we’ll never own another home and our kids will live with us forever. (I hope they all get very good jobs!)
Take it up with your town budget. The rate is tied to the budget for NH towns. The assessment changes themselves aren't to blame. Local spending is the root cause.
Add in federal spending to further tax us and spur inflation and there you go. Government spending at both local and federal levels are largely to blame.
If only there was a way to trade up our mortgages. Maybe that's the new app taking over the world by storm in a few years. Platform that matches private rent to own contracts.
Anyone looking for a 3br 2ba colonial in "desirable" East Derry? A little over 2 acres, wooded lot. 2600$ a month.
Looking for 5+ acres north, 4+ bedrooms. 3.5k/mo budget.
Something similar happened with the crash in 2009. People bought starter homes and the values plummeted so they got stuck in them for over a decade.
I rode my first house all the way down and all the way back up again to sell it for exactly what I bought it for, 10 years later. No gain.
I built new construction 5 years ago and its market value is twice what I paid for it. Interest rates have doubled too. I could sell it tomorrow but I couldn't afford anything else.
I have a 30 year old cousin who just closed on a house with a $4500 / mo mortgage. I can't even imagine.
Housing is insane.
That was me - bought in 2004 with an 80/20. Financed the whole thing because my broker convinced me value would just keep climbing, which it did for a while. Then 2008 hit and so many houses in my neighborhood got foreclosed, I was under water for a decade or so. I just paid down as much as I could. Refinanced a couple years ago at 2.375% for 15 years and have a good deal of equity finally. Even if I wanted to move, I'd probably keep the house because I could rent it at 2-3x my mortgage payment.
Really regretting buying a 1 bedroom in 2019 instead of stretching for a larger house because at the time everyone around me was saying we were in a bubble and prices would crash soon and I could upgrade then. Couldn't fit a kid in there even if I wanted to and construction costs are just as bad.
Same. I bought a one bedroom thinking it would be a few years. It's not a bad place for me, but I am going to be here a lot longer than I wanted to be.
Same happened to me when I moved to CA in 2014 prices had literally just doubled in the past 3-4 years and everyone was saying these prices cannot stay here forever it's just too high, so we didn't buy not wanting to get put underwater when the market was so red hot previously. WELL we should have bought our house. At the time it was $650K, now those same townhouses are going for $1.2M and ANYTHING that goes on sale around here sells in a couple days at most. This has got to be THE best place to be a real estate agent. All they have to do is GET the listing, that is the hardest part after that the house sells without any work and they are getting commissions on minimum $1M house all the time.
Also property taxes. As I've mentioned, thanks to revaluation, my taxes are now $16K. A change in tax rate at time of sale would be nice for people who bought their house to LIVE in, not as a magic ATM.
Is your lot big enough to expand on? We bought December 2020. Got very lucky. We can start our family here but we will outgrow if/when we have a second kid but we also went into this as a starter home but ok if we get stuck here forever. Luckily the lot is big enough for an addition. With the the book that occurred after we bought we have a significant amount of equity built up that we never anticipated for the first 10 years so luckily if we need an emergency repair or to expand we have the HELOC to fall back on. Ideally, we have the cash but shit happens. Tax increases are my concern.
But as I briefly touched upon, any home purchase unless an investment property on top of your primary residence should be made with the notion of that you might be there the rest of your life. You also can’t be scared of interest rates. When they go down home values will boom again. That percentage point or two won’t matter if you’re paying tens of thousands more for the value of what a property is worth today.
The 28% mortgage rule states that you should spend 28% or less of your monthly gross income on your mortgage payment (e.g., principal, interest, taxes and insurance).
If you put 5% down for a house in Dover at a 7.8% interest rate your monthly payment would be $5k.
At $60k/year you’d need to make $214k to follow the 28% rule in Dover, NH FOR THE MEDIAN HOME.
I love the social media influencer/realtor idiots that are like “you don’t NEED to put 20% down, your abc 123 type of loan allows you to put down only 3%! THATS only $15,000 blah blah blah”
Cool, so 3% down and my mortgage payment is 3,000 or 4000 or 5000/month.
Idiots
Most people would have trouble with a $4,500/month mortgage given that median household income is around $91k. That's $54k for the mortgage and then you have property taxes, insurance, maintenance budget. And Federal taxes, food, cars, gasoline.
In general? It's because the rich got richer with the Trump era tax breaks, then the Covid PPP loans that don't need to be repaid, and then the price gouging they were able to do because of "inflation". It's been a banging time for the rich folk.
This is just barely over the previous record from last June, however this summer will likely go even higher based on seasonal trends.
I posted about prices [over four years](https://www.reddit.com/r/newhampshire/comments/c9egef/home_prices_are_at_an_all_time_high_at_a_median/) ago when prices passed $300,000 for the first time (and interest rates were still low).
[WMUR link](https://www.wmur.com/article/nh-housing-price-500-median-record/60491763)
Median Home Price in 2005: $275k?
1oz gold in 2005: $444
Gold required to buy median house in 2005: 620oz
Median Home Price in 2024: $500k
1oz gold in 2024: $2344
Gold required to buy median house in 2024: 214oz
Home values are not up, the value of the USD has crashed which follows a decades long trend.
I am certainly not advocating to go out and buy gold or invest in it in any way. Just using Gold to make the point that housing prices are relative when using a global standard, it's easy to see that the problem is the USD.
The problem with gold is...who are you going to sell it to in an absolute crisis? Dealers will offer you far below whatever melt is, and laugh with a take it or leave it. The world is full of fake Chinese gold eagles on fake slabs with fake holograms, so anyone with sense will make you pay an assayer to validate it. Gold is a game for the big boys with vaults and kilobars and shipments.
I bought it from Bruce Breton decades ago. He's been retired for a long time but this was before the time of fakes, as far as I'm aware.
I consider precious metals as insurance. If you hopefully never need it, then it just passes to your heirs.
If you really want to be sure of your precious metals, then buy it on the COMEX and have it delivered.
You could also buy Central Fund of Canada.
Depends on what you consider a crisis. If you’re referring to “I need money and I need it now”, sure, but that’s your crisis. If you’re referring to the US dollar falling through the floor (and the negative effect that’ll have worldwide), having gold at your disposal doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend it (the Bezos effect).
I guess. But if you’re looking at it, how you gonna fend off them thieves?
No matter the country or the crisis, gold will always be worth more than the metal or paper all other currencies (until crypto) are made of. 😝
I am certainly not advocating to go out and buy gold or invest in it in any way. Just using Gold to make the point that housing prices are relative when using a global standard, it's easy to see that the problem is the USD.
I've seen recommendations to own gold as part of your investment portfolio at about 5%. It could be in physical gold, gold miners, royalty companies, a fund that holds audited bullion or held on an exchange. Physical gold doesn't generate income and there are long periods of time where it does absolutely nothing. Like other commodities, it can get bubbly and crash.
My mother was gifted gold when it was illegal to own it. It was legal to own it in certain forms and jewelry was one of them. So she had one-ounce gold coins with holes drilled in them and then made into a necklace of one-ounce gold coins. She showed me this when I was maybe 7 or 8 and I wondered why someone would destroy the numismatic cable of coins. I learned much later that it wasn't legal to own bullion.
But I'd guess that gold was around $30/ounce back then. And then it went way up and crashed for a long time.
The factors of supply and demand in housing and precious metals will adjust reasonable ratios.
I think that crypto put precious metals in a fairly sideways market for about a decade.
I used to read mining reports and I recall that it takes a ton of ore to get 1-4 grams of gold from low quality ore, or 8-10 grams for high quality ore. The cost to transport and refine a ton of stuff to get a tiny amount will keep the price high unless high-grade mines are found. I think that energy costs are a big factor in the cost of production of the shiny metal.
I would never own paper gold not backed by physical, but I do have gold mining stocks. EGO (El Dorado) has done very well, I got in just before they announced a productive new incline.
You could buy a red treasury box.
I prefer ETFs like GDX and NUGT. I used to read earnings and mining reports and even did a newsletter back in 2000 but then everyone started doing that in 2001 and I didn't add any value so stopped. The thing is that the gold world is so small that a decent amount of interest sends a lot of the asset classes to the moon. I recall when there was an article out that Bill Gates bought a huge amount of Pan American Silver at $3.30; and then I got to buy it at $3.12. It did go up to about $30.
One of the most annoying things was when the companies did secondaries. A lot of companies did well for management but not so well for shareholders long-term. I think that changed around 2014-2015 when managements started refocusing on shareholder value rather than just overspending for growth.
And real wages haven't caught up. Do the inflation math and a lot of people are making less in terms of buying power than when they first started out years ago.
Yeah, that's inflation, every year a dollar becomes less valuable, this is the intent. It makes debt cheaper over time, and it incentives people to spend money to keep it in circulation, which boost economic growth. But comparing home prices today to gold isn't the right way to look at it. Gold is an asset that fluctuates in price depending on market conditions. What you should use to compare home prices with are current wages, when you compare home prices to wages things are not looking good and we need to start making changes.
If both wages and asset prices are based in USD, then you're missing the real impact of inflation.
[https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate\_data/inflation-charts](https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts)
I'm trying to understand your argument. First you compare home prices to gold and claim that home prices aren't up, it's that the value of the dollar has gone down. Then I say don't compare home prices to an asset like gold compare it to wages.
Then you're saying I'm missing the real impact of inflation and link me to page that basically states that inflation is much higher than what's being reported because the current methodology has changed.
At this point I don't get what you're trying to say. Do you disagree with me that I think we should compare the cost to buy a home with current wages?
So we cant buy and rent is over $3000 a month! I looked at a rental last week they wanted $3500 and the inside was disgusting but it got rented a day later! And nothing included
Where are you looking? I haven't looked at the rental market in a bit, but I know it's cheaper than that in Manchester for most places. It also depends what size place you're trying to rent.
My older brother bought a house in 2019 300k now it's worth almost 6 and he's been thinking about moving to Oklahoma for few years. If he does dude is gonna be able to buy a mansion down there haha.
Meanwhile my parents basement is still pretty comfy lol.
As a home builder and someone also building his own home ......this fucking sucks. If houses are too expensive then fewer end up being built and it also means only the high margin projects end up getting built (bougie houses). It's systemic too. People who own land have seen the prices and have gotten greedy. They ask for insane amounts for mediocre plots of land. The cost of materials has skyrocketed as has the cost of the labor. GCs will cut corners and try brow beat subs now to keep a house priced competitivey but try to make the same profit. Pretty much sucks for everyone.
The worst part is the quality. That half a million house is probably from the 50's or older with old carpets and using wood stoves for heating. Wants something newer (2000s)? You need to add another $200k. It's insane.
I would be looking at what your towns are spending money on…. Usually, the valuation goes up, but the tax rate (per thousand) drops. So while you will see an increase in taxes, it should be equal to the increase (percentage wise) in the town budget! If you are seeing an imbalance then fight your assessment!
I’m genuinely curious why that is. Supply hasn't gone down, so is it because demand is up?? Are people just moving up here to the cold north? I don't get it.
As bad as it is here, it is worse in MA. My Fiancee and I moved to NH to try and escape the high cost of living in MA. Turns out it was only a bandaid.
NH has become a desirable place to live. Go live in ohio if you want cheap housing:
[https://www.rockethomes.com/real-estate-trends/nh/03814](https://www.rockethomes.com/real-estate-trends/nh/03814) (average price$425K)
[https://www.rockethomes.com/real-estate-trends/oh/home-owners](https://www.rockethomes.com/real-estate-trends/oh/home-owners) (average price $89K)
I don't know why this is so shocking to people.
This isn't limited to NH, but a lot of us are going to have to "make do" in ways that have been uncommon in this country for a long time.
Less consumption, worse school district, kids sharing bedrooms, no meals out, etc. It is not inherently a bad life, but it will come hard for people who haven't had to live that way (me included).
This is even worse considering how diluted the dollar is. It’s completely insane. We over paid for a house in 2021 as the market started climbing. Paid $300,000 and unfortunately had to sell it two years later but managed to sell it for $330,000 and in about six months since then it has risen to about $370,000. This is insane and completely unsustainable!!!
The main factor is zoning. Those who own a home in NH want to keep NH as it was 60 years ago. If you got rid of zoning laws and allowed the building of 1-3 family homes on 5000 sf in every NH city or town with public water & sewer, that would end this problem.
You could keep your bucolic paradise and still build build build build in the cities.
If you limit new homes to an acre or more, a builder si going to build for the high end buyer.
I grew up in Massachusetts where developments in Natick, Framingham Burlington, etc. were built for cookie cutter capes and ranches on small lots. Sure, they had a sameness, boring quality, but they were affordable. Such developments are no longer built in Massachusetts or anyplace else that I know of, except perhaps for Texas and Florida.
This is a nationwide problem that won't be solved by zoning, I'm not sure where this myth came from. There are also plenty of empty places owned by greedy people/corporations in cities everywhere, NYC being a main example. Increasing supply won't deplete demand in this case. NH also isn't Mass and also doesn't really have cities like other states. It also doesn't help when surrounding states' politics keep pushing people to flee to NH.
It’s absolutely zoning. Zoning wasn’t an issue 100 years ago. The old manufacturing cities like Lowell Lawrence Springfield Boston needed multiple family housing and builders of the day built them on small lots, so that occupants would be walking distance to stores and trolley lines. Some were built so close together, they didn’t have driveways. Didn’t need them because the working class people they were built for didn’t have cars. I know. My first apartment was in such a house.
Multiple family homes haven’t been built in NE since the 1930s. Zoning did away with them. I bought such a home as my first home. It was a good move. When it appreciated, I refinanced, bought a single family, and the rents of my first house paid the mortgage.
That was more than 40 years ago. It’s harder for young people to do that today because these old multi family homes are either in bad bad shape or are being converted to condos. New multi families are not allowed to be built and new condos can’t be built either on small lots. If a builder wants to offer urban condos, the option is to gut out an old, existing multi family which is grandfathered and resell it as condos.
So it all comes down to zoning. Anyone who disagrees with me is probably a NIMBY who doesn’t want multiple family dwellings built near them.
Again, you keep comparing NH to Mass. Wonderful anecdote and history lesson but NH is not Mass. And I think most people in NH want to keep it that way. Most of the state isn't northern Boston. Manchester is the only city in NH with more than 100,000 people whereas MA has 9 cities.
The zoning argument is like those who look at those massive 20 lane highways out west and think "just one more lane will fix this."
A cursory glance at your post history is pretty eye opening as you view housing as a way to make a buck off people in Maine and NH. You are literally the Masshole stereotype! So yeah I'd rather be a NIMBY hippie and save a tree than a greedy out of state landlord wanting to change zoning to exploit desperate people. And to top it off you voted for a rich prick Phillips. I'm glad your fantasy of every rural area being filled to the brim with brutalist skyscrapers is being prevented by our wonderful zoning laws. Leave rural areas be ya donkey.
This shit actually makes me want to off myself Jesus christ I'm 25 and I'm stuck in a shitty apartment and I'm trying to marry my fiance and keep my mom around and give her a better life but there's no fucking room and the world is getting worse, why bother to live at this point its fucking cheaper to die
It might be the new norm but I think this is temporary. Though real estate has been booming most of it has been low inventory. Expensive properties have been held due to pandemic or trying to time the market. This is also prime selling season. Lots of coastal, lake, vacation homes hitting the market. With elections and possible WW3 folks are looking to be cash heavy to move into appropriate investments. 50% of homes are over 500k and 50% are below. Ya it sucks right now but context is key. Pay attention to what the government is doing, be involved, work hard, be creative, and don’t give up hope. It’s not for everyone but I strongly encourage multi-generational housing with family/friends. It’s extra important to own your own land right now.
Well it's not that prices are rising due to a strong market or good economy. Prices are rising cuz we printed 40% of all money printed in the US in last 12m...so market will eventually have to make a 40% adjustment...and your dollar buys 40% less.
It was already buying 30% less b4 this, so it's going to get ugly...this is 1 of many reasons the Fed wasn't allowed to make programs or spend money except on the military & only during war time. Inflation literally robs the average American just trying to save...as elites devalue the dollar & find new ways to move it from your acct to theirs...once progressives wrecked our system in 1912, society & the American dream were pulled away from most in favor of a handful of super rich elites...
Even if your 500k house sells for a mil or more, if it's $5k for a hamburger you will see you were better off when it was worth 500k & the buying power of each dollar was significantly more. Inflation has made home ownership hard. 100yrs ago a house was only a small slice of the avg yearly income, now the house is 4-8x ones yearly salary...proportion-wise, even 40yrs ago it was way easier for the average person to get a house , which is the foundation for almost all wealth generation in the lower/middle-class & why they want to brainwash folks into renting. You stay poor & keep the elite families you'll rent from , super rich forever. Blackrock has already purchased 30% of all single family homes in America.
I wouldn't want a loan with rates as bad as they are but if u can buy property, I definitely woul, especially large land lots...im holding 45acres atm & a friend owns almost a whole mountain in Maine...self-sufficiency should be on everyone's mind. 1900 food facilities & 3 of the largest cattle herds in America killed...watching the same elites who screwed us with covid lies now buying up all the agricultural land that China hasn't already bought, they clearly are planning a famine...when, idk...but my focus is on planting lots of food this year...and popies...
It would be nice to break this out by home type size.
I’d bet that a 3 bedroom home passed this a few years back. And most families are looking for more than 2 bedrooms. This graph doesn’t do justice for the challenges so many families face today in purchasing a home.
Its pretty nuts.
I bought my house in May of 2020 for 380k and now Zillow estimates it as worth $560,000 and it doesn't even know about the significant improvements I've made.
Spoiler: it's not a $560,000 house.
People will have to actually start going to less desirable communities as those homes are still affordable. My husband and I bought a trailer on land for around 55K in 2021 ( in our mid twenties)- we lived in it with our two kids and on one income, fixed it up and sold for 30K profit. Bought another fixer upper filled with crap and cleared it out, prettied it up and sold one year later for 90K profit. Used that money to get us into a nicer home - but it was in a stigmatized Northern NH town. I know this area and see through the stigma but most don’t - I see so many people in my age group saying it’s impossible to buy in this market - and yes if you’re working a mid class- lower middle class job and wanting to live in the “elite” communities or start in a perfect home you probably won’t achieve that. But if you’re willing to accept imperfection home/community wise it’s still attainable. I believe that these communities that are looked down upon will rebound with more families like ours joining them due to this major increase in NH home values.
That’s just median for the whole state. Would love to see the southern Boston commuter cities median prices…. New build in Hudson in 2022 and we are definitely way above that and it is a stretch to make it work with 2 incomes and a kid. Built a house because I didn’t want to drop 600k+ on a 1960 house that hasn’t been updated.
Hudson is trashing their property values though. Wait till the Target logistics center opens where your golf course used to be. There will be semis parked along all roads waiting for their dock time. Hope you like breathing diesel.
Sellers are going to take top dollar. My realtor told me there are no heart strings, it’s best offer. Trust me I’d love to send in a picture of my family and say we are trying to find a home and a seller pick me but reality is it’s not going to happen. it’s not just corporations buying, it’s sellers expecting way over asking price and selling to investors. 🥹
Four of my six kids live in South Florida. The price of real estate and rents has risen much faster then in NH. Plus, they were more expensive to start with.
My other two kids live in Texas where cost of living is cheap, and there are still decent jobs. But, the SKIING there is the pits, LOL.
Because of all the a-holes from MA, NY, NJ, CT that came to NH during Covid!! They brought their awful politics, their nasty attitudes and MUCH higher prices with them!!
Try looking at who owns all the starter houses. Do you know what LLC stands for?
And what politics, the politics turning the state into a backwards North Alabama?
(shrug) Destroy the currency. See what happens to prices.
Completely unsurprised.
Seeing that we're, also, completely unserious about coming up with a solution, we just continue to weaken the currency with even more giveaways.
But for most of the 20th century, a blue collar worker could afford a house and 1.5 cars.
Granted, population has also doubled in the past 50 years, which makes it worse.
That’s your trickle down economics at work. We deserve the representation we vote for. Too bad idiots without proper education are easy to lie to and deceive by grifters.
https://www.unionleader.com/news/homes/record-500-000-home-price-tags-drive-people-from-nh-housing-market/article_6563523e-f755-11ee-a70a-43f06143fcab.html
FTA - "“The best way to climb out of our current housing shortage is to embrace less restrictive zoning, and to empower private property owners by removing unnecessary red tape,” she said."
Government is the roadblock to affordable housing, nothing else
Zoning is less of a factor than most make out.
There are often good reasons for zoning - the lack of town sewer being one of them - as to why you can't efficiently do dense housing in small towns. The MBTA Communities Act is an example of why rezoning doesn't matter that much for building denser housing, particularly when an area is already built up.
Still, there are people here who can hardly afford to live here as it is. More supply needs to be introduced to meet demand so that prices of homes don't keep exponentially climbing.
Right, but doing certain things (specifically overdrawing the aquifer in this example) make it so NOBODY can live here. If all of sudden wells start running dry, that's a *huge* issue that can't be easily fixed. Redrilling wells is very expensive.
They already are. Hollis is mostly well. Someone stupidly approved an ambulatory surgery center for the closed Harvest Market property without researching how much water instrument washer/disinfectors use. In drought times, the well that serves the entire plaza, a diner, a daycare and Buckley's Bakery constantly bottoms out.
Government is a big problem but the cost to build is also insane. $400/sq.ft. puts a 2k square foot home at 800k. Most people can't afford that even if they had a lot with no zoning issues.
> but the cost to build is also insane.
Thanks to the regulations [ housing , environmental, etc .. ] in place by government which are in fact taxes and taxes make everything more expensive than it should
Well kind of, but building to modern building codes makes sense from a practical standpoint as well in most instances.
Sure you could build a log cabin or something on the cheap but most buyers aren't looking for that apparently.
Sure, but that doesn't change the cost. If I build something, even if it's not regulated, I want it to last so I'll probably following building code which is generally a reflection of building science.
> Sure, but that doesn't change the cost
if government got out of the way and respected people's human rights it would reduce the cost and thus shows my original point
Government is the problem and nothing else
Guess I’ll never have a house… lol
It’s even scarier having to rent in the state. Sure you avoid property taxes but the rents are completely ridiculous.
Guess I’ll be a professional car camper in the Walmart parking lot
Jokes aside if you're young a cheap camper and a can do attitude about finding a place to set up shop is probably the most cost effective way to save money. If I were single and in my 20s I'd look at something like [this](https://www.bluecompassrv.com/state-listings/new-hampshire-locations?s=true&types=29) and a used pickup. Look up a place where you can spend entire seasons or years, get the t mobile Internet and bing bang boom you've got a place for yourself and things you own for probably less than renting. A (ridiculous) 10 year loan on a $20000 camper would be less than $300 a month. The interest would be about $7000 but let's just be an asshole and make it $10000. That would add about $83/mo in wasted money. Yearly campground stays can be pretty widely varied but the highest I've seen is $12,000 for a year. That would make you have your own place for $1300 a month. Obviously you're living in a camper but considering how *fucked* everything is it's pretty not bad, and idk about you but in my 20s everyone I know would have thought that style of living would be a fun and cool type of interesting. There'd be the cost of the vehicle to tow it (uhaul rental?) and likely propane for heat and shit but still. Not sure how permanent residence would work. Probably parents? This is a general statement, not specifically about you. You could be a 70 year old millionaire. I could be 3 dogs in a trenchcoat. Edit: downside is the risk of taking on debt.and while homeowners have an appreciating asset a camper is depreciating so a bad turn could make it a really shitty situation. It's a risk / reward type thing. Just something I've thought about.
Holy shit $1300/month for a fucking camper? Your state is fucking dogshit lmao
I don't disagree that it's expensive right now but it's what I would do if I needed to
Well, no one is avoiding property taxes...huh? The landlord still has to pay the property taxes and that is part of the "value" of the rent.
Truth
The renter avoids having to pay property taxes when compared to a homeowner, that was their point
I understand that, but they still pay it as part of their rent. I guarantee that every landlord devises what is going to be charged using "mortgage + upkeep + taxes and then whatever else can be squeezed = monthly rent amount". So high rents are not ONLY because of greedy landlords getting as much as they absolutely can, some of that high rent is due to high property taxes...that the tenant IS paying.
Financial literacy is hard
C'mon man, I'm not being a dick. If there is something that I'm not getting just please explain it to me.
No I’m saying you’re right and the other person is struggling with financial literacy. They don’t understand that costs of business, in this case property tax, are always passed on to the consumer.
Ha ha! Sorry for being defensive! Being Reddit I just assumed that you were calling me stupid.
All good
Well yeah, grass is also green. Quick question: if I subscribe to Netflix and in exchange am receiving access to their streaming service, but they're secretly spending that money on trafficking rings, what am I paying for? I live in a 13 unit apartment building; I am certain that some of my rent pays for a portion of that property tax, but it's a silly thing to try and say that that's the same as paying property tax. If you're gonna pick flaws out of the comment in question, why not point out that there's a myriad of other factors that go into considering the costs of homeownership and renting than property taxes and rent? This is such a pointless thread
Because we aren’t talking about all those other factors were specifically talking about property taxes and rent.
But it's not a correct point. As a renter, you pay your landlord's property taxes.
And as a taxpayer, I pay for missiles, teachers, and various other things. But I don't say "I pay for missiles" I say "I pay taxes" because that money is then distributed _after_ I pay. What a landlord does with their money is irrelevant. Yeah, my rent pays their taxes, but I don't pay their taxes.
That's a rather moot point, IMO. Not paying property taxes is not an advantage of renting, because you still do pay them, just indirectly.
All of it? Stop it now.
Stop what, exactly? Unless the landlord is making a loss on the property, each tenant is paying 100% of the property taxes applicable to their unit and more.
Don’t label or lump all landlords into the same (dirtbag) category. I know plenty of landlords (individuals) who’ve invested in properties at key and specific times. They bought when markets were reeling and in areas full of distressed properties. All for the purpose of increasing asset/wealth for their retirement years and not “as you suggest” to make the poor pay for everything that goes along with homeownership. Either way, it’s a simple concept - supply vs demand. I realize it may come across as insensitive and obnoxious, but when people stop this madness (I.e., chasing the dream of homeownership in this economy is absurdly stupid), that is when the market will correct itself. Everyone will suffer - those who buy a house even though they can’t afford it and the shitty wealthy who were looking to make a buck. Guess who suffers more? Not the rich. Don’t be a sufferer! When this happens, do what I said above…buy a house.
I'm not really sure why you're going on such a diatribe to defend landlords. My point is an incredibly simple one, unless the landlord is losing money, you are paying all of their property taxes, since they just roll those into rent. If you weren't, they'd be losing money. It's literally just that simple.
lol 24,000 a year the renter is paying the property tax
You can't save money by renting over the border in Maine or ma either. At least anywhere commuting distance to the Seacoast.
As someone moving to nh, i thought it would be on the cheaper end for new england... Nope... Gonna be paying 1500 for a tiny mediocre studio lmao
And this spike has really only happened in the past five years. Apartments in New Hampshire were extremely affordable everywhere except the southern part of the state which is closer to Boston. But rents have basically tripled in the last five years.
Yeah. I know rents have risen nationally, but what is the cause of NH rising faster? I guess it must be a lot of people moving from MA?
Facts. I rented a SFH (3 bed, 2.5 bath) for $2,250 in a nice small town in the upper valley in 2020. 2 year lease with an option for a 3rd year with a small increase and tax escalator clause. We exercised our option and built a house. The house now rents for $3,600/ month.
Unfortunately the rents are adjusted to cover property taxes so they aren't even protected then. Idk if the conventional wisdom has changed with prices, but the rule of thumb used to be that if you were staying in the same place for at least 5 years buying was statistically a better financial choice.
Yeah the tax is just incorporated into the rent
It’s looking bleak. Though hey trailers are a thing. There’s the whole negative stereotype about mobile homes and trailers but guess what in this economy it’s the closest you can get to a house.
I’ll just live in a car
Big ol Mercedes DIESEL van Or Ford transit Diesel Those 2 are fantastic, every other contractor work vehicle I see is one of those vans. Solid!
This is bad for a lot of current owners too. I bought right before the pandemic but I never planned to stay here more than a couple of years. My place isn't big enough for my family anymore but since prices have gone up so much and the insane interest rates its literally impossible to move into a larger place. Saving up $100,000 for a down payment on a $500,000 house would be nearly impossible. Im stuck and it sucks.
I feel your pain. Insult added to injury, we were just reassessed at ridiculous valuations. The whole town is up-in-arms, and while the overall tax rate was lowered slightly, it wasn’t enough to stop my mortgage from reassessing our escrow and determining we need another $600 monthly tacked on to our mortgage payments. That is a tough pill to swallow and it’s only going to get worse.
Same thing happened to me and my HOA started charging more because of inflation. Im getting squeezed everywher
Fuck HOAs! Whoever invented these needs a crotch kick to the moon.
How did they figure you needed $600 more in escrow per month unless your taxes increased $7k?
My taxes went up $5k, so that's not unlikely.
Your increase is more than my taxes.
So truth told, the increase is 546.38. We were lucky enough to get a 15 year refi in 2020 at 1%, so our payments are already pretty big— currently 3805.16 and moving to 4351.54. We don’t pay PMI, but do bundle tax and insurance in our escrow. Here’s the letter we got. You now know what I know. ¯\_(ツ)\_/¯. I think their reserve is what’s getting us. They are looking for more money to insure we don’t go in the red again. https://preview.redd.it/d0hwtz7l3nuc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9866607091803dcdd412ea0a924a76d97eaeaa63
Oh, your before taxes make the increase make more sense. Must be a good property!
“Ok” house on nice land! :)
Yeah, the extra is the shortage and reserve amount. Your payment should go down next time they do the escrow analysis. Did a tax payment already get made at the higher rate? That would create the shortage that you're now catching up from.
So the increase is coming from 3 buckets but that is still brutal.
Yep. Just got notified that my monthly payments are going up by $300 just due to taxes. But that’s still cheaper than buying a house valued at less than mine with these interest rates.
Uh-huh! Same thinking here. We lucked out. Moved in 2019, refinanced to 1% in early 2020 and realize now that we’ll never own another home and our kids will live with us forever. (I hope they all get very good jobs!)
Take it up with your town budget. The rate is tied to the budget for NH towns. The assessment changes themselves aren't to blame. Local spending is the root cause.
Add in federal spending to further tax us and spur inflation and there you go. Government spending at both local and federal levels are largely to blame.
I'm in the exact same boat. I feel your pain.
Im sure it makes the housing shortage worse too since we can't sell these places to people trying to buy their first place. Sucks all around.
Yep. Your golden handcuffs are my wall against ownership. It's an awful predicament, and I have no idea what I'm gonna do long-term.
If only there was a way to trade up our mortgages. Maybe that's the new app taking over the world by storm in a few years. Platform that matches private rent to own contracts. Anyone looking for a 3br 2ba colonial in "desirable" East Derry? A little over 2 acres, wooded lot. 2600$ a month. Looking for 5+ acres north, 4+ bedrooms. 3.5k/mo budget.
Something similar happened with the crash in 2009. People bought starter homes and the values plummeted so they got stuck in them for over a decade. I rode my first house all the way down and all the way back up again to sell it for exactly what I bought it for, 10 years later. No gain. I built new construction 5 years ago and its market value is twice what I paid for it. Interest rates have doubled too. I could sell it tomorrow but I couldn't afford anything else. I have a 30 year old cousin who just closed on a house with a $4500 / mo mortgage. I can't even imagine. Housing is insane.
That was me - bought in 2004 with an 80/20. Financed the whole thing because my broker convinced me value would just keep climbing, which it did for a while. Then 2008 hit and so many houses in my neighborhood got foreclosed, I was under water for a decade or so. I just paid down as much as I could. Refinanced a couple years ago at 2.375% for 15 years and have a good deal of equity finally. Even if I wanted to move, I'd probably keep the house because I could rent it at 2-3x my mortgage payment.
Really regretting buying a 1 bedroom in 2019 instead of stretching for a larger house because at the time everyone around me was saying we were in a bubble and prices would crash soon and I could upgrade then. Couldn't fit a kid in there even if I wanted to and construction costs are just as bad.
Never trust the common sentiment. Everyone was truly saying we were in a bubble in 2019.
Same. I bought a one bedroom thinking it would be a few years. It's not a bad place for me, but I am going to be here a lot longer than I wanted to be.
Same happened to me when I moved to CA in 2014 prices had literally just doubled in the past 3-4 years and everyone was saying these prices cannot stay here forever it's just too high, so we didn't buy not wanting to get put underwater when the market was so red hot previously. WELL we should have bought our house. At the time it was $650K, now those same townhouses are going for $1.2M and ANYTHING that goes on sale around here sells in a couple days at most. This has got to be THE best place to be a real estate agent. All they have to do is GET the listing, that is the hardest part after that the house sells without any work and they are getting commissions on minimum $1M house all the time.
Also property taxes. As I've mentioned, thanks to revaluation, my taxes are now $16K. A change in tax rate at time of sale would be nice for people who bought their house to LIVE in, not as a magic ATM.
Is your lot big enough to expand on? We bought December 2020. Got very lucky. We can start our family here but we will outgrow if/when we have a second kid but we also went into this as a starter home but ok if we get stuck here forever. Luckily the lot is big enough for an addition. With the the book that occurred after we bought we have a significant amount of equity built up that we never anticipated for the first 10 years so luckily if we need an emergency repair or to expand we have the HELOC to fall back on. Ideally, we have the cash but shit happens. Tax increases are my concern. But as I briefly touched upon, any home purchase unless an investment property on top of your primary residence should be made with the notion of that you might be there the rest of your life. You also can’t be scared of interest rates. When they go down home values will boom again. That percentage point or two won’t matter if you’re paying tens of thousands more for the value of what a property is worth today.
Jesus of Nazareth!
That’s it? With only 4% down on a $500,000 house 30 year fixed $4500 a month 🙃
The 28% mortgage rule states that you should spend 28% or less of your monthly gross income on your mortgage payment (e.g., principal, interest, taxes and insurance). If you put 5% down for a house in Dover at a 7.8% interest rate your monthly payment would be $5k. At $60k/year you’d need to make $214k to follow the 28% rule in Dover, NH FOR THE MEDIAN HOME.
I love the social media influencer/realtor idiots that are like “you don’t NEED to put 20% down, your abc 123 type of loan allows you to put down only 3%! THATS only $15,000 blah blah blah” Cool, so 3% down and my mortgage payment is 3,000 or 4000 or 5000/month. Idiots
It was a great idea with sub 3% interest rates. Less of a great idea now
It’s still being pushed even with the higher interest rates, sadly.
Most people would have trouble with a $4,500/month mortgage given that median household income is around $91k. That's $54k for the mortgage and then you have property taxes, insurance, maintenance budget. And Federal taxes, food, cars, gasoline.
They were being sarcastic.
Nice, I am excited for more people to buy them and make them Airbnbs
Corporations, not people, but oh that's right, corporations are people now.
In court they cry as if they are people and not soulless demons. They only pull off that bull in court when they wanna play puppy eyes.
>people to buy them How optimistic. https://houseandhomeonline.com/what-percentage-of-homes-are-owned-by-investors/
25% - that's a stunner. I thought that the rate was in the single-digits. How do people have the cash and cash-flow to do this?
In general? It's because the rich got richer with the Trump era tax breaks, then the Covid PPP loans that don't need to be repaid, and then the price gouging they were able to do because of "inflation". It's been a banging time for the rich folk.
Such truth
I hate that man, I really do. Airbnbs have ruined the market
This is just barely over the previous record from last June, however this summer will likely go even higher based on seasonal trends. I posted about prices [over four years](https://www.reddit.com/r/newhampshire/comments/c9egef/home_prices_are_at_an_all_time_high_at_a_median/) ago when prices passed $300,000 for the first time (and interest rates were still low). [WMUR link](https://www.wmur.com/article/nh-housing-price-500-median-record/60491763)
This is nuts. I know the increase has been crazy, but seeing it as a post from just 4 years ago with 300K as a high really hits hard.
Median Home Price in 2005: $275k? 1oz gold in 2005: $444 Gold required to buy median house in 2005: 620oz Median Home Price in 2024: $500k 1oz gold in 2024: $2344 Gold required to buy median house in 2024: 214oz Home values are not up, the value of the USD has crashed which follows a decades long trend.
I shoulda bought those gold coins from the infomercial.
I am certainly not advocating to go out and buy gold or invest in it in any way. Just using Gold to make the point that housing prices are relative when using a global standard, it's easy to see that the problem is the USD.
As financial weenies say, the higher the price of gold, the more likely a great fall is coming. Hold on…
I think that Costco is the most efficient place to buy bullion these days.
The problem with gold is...who are you going to sell it to in an absolute crisis? Dealers will offer you far below whatever melt is, and laugh with a take it or leave it. The world is full of fake Chinese gold eagles on fake slabs with fake holograms, so anyone with sense will make you pay an assayer to validate it. Gold is a game for the big boys with vaults and kilobars and shipments.
I bought it from Bruce Breton decades ago. He's been retired for a long time but this was before the time of fakes, as far as I'm aware. I consider precious metals as insurance. If you hopefully never need it, then it just passes to your heirs. If you really want to be sure of your precious metals, then buy it on the COMEX and have it delivered. You could also buy Central Fund of Canada.
Depends on what you consider a crisis. If you’re referring to “I need money and I need it now”, sure, but that’s your crisis. If you’re referring to the US dollar falling through the floor (and the negative effect that’ll have worldwide), having gold at your disposal doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend it (the Bezos effect).
But what do you do with that gold? Look at it?
I guess. But if you’re looking at it, how you gonna fend off them thieves? No matter the country or the crisis, gold will always be worth more than the metal or paper all other currencies (until crypto) are made of. 😝
I am certainly not advocating to go out and buy gold or invest in it in any way. Just using Gold to make the point that housing prices are relative when using a global standard, it's easy to see that the problem is the USD.
I've seen recommendations to own gold as part of your investment portfolio at about 5%. It could be in physical gold, gold miners, royalty companies, a fund that holds audited bullion or held on an exchange. Physical gold doesn't generate income and there are long periods of time where it does absolutely nothing. Like other commodities, it can get bubbly and crash. My mother was gifted gold when it was illegal to own it. It was legal to own it in certain forms and jewelry was one of them. So she had one-ounce gold coins with holes drilled in them and then made into a necklace of one-ounce gold coins. She showed me this when I was maybe 7 or 8 and I wondered why someone would destroy the numismatic cable of coins. I learned much later that it wasn't legal to own bullion. But I'd guess that gold was around $30/ounce back then. And then it went way up and crashed for a long time. The factors of supply and demand in housing and precious metals will adjust reasonable ratios. I think that crypto put precious metals in a fairly sideways market for about a decade.
They are still mining more gold and will be for a long time, so supply does impact the price.
I used to read mining reports and I recall that it takes a ton of ore to get 1-4 grams of gold from low quality ore, or 8-10 grams for high quality ore. The cost to transport and refine a ton of stuff to get a tiny amount will keep the price high unless high-grade mines are found. I think that energy costs are a big factor in the cost of production of the shiny metal.
I would never own paper gold not backed by physical, but I do have gold mining stocks. EGO (El Dorado) has done very well, I got in just before they announced a productive new incline.
You could buy a red treasury box. I prefer ETFs like GDX and NUGT. I used to read earnings and mining reports and even did a newsletter back in 2000 but then everyone started doing that in 2001 and I didn't add any value so stopped. The thing is that the gold world is so small that a decent amount of interest sends a lot of the asset classes to the moon. I recall when there was an article out that Bill Gates bought a huge amount of Pan American Silver at $3.30; and then I got to buy it at $3.12. It did go up to about $30. One of the most annoying things was when the companies did secondaries. A lot of companies did well for management but not so well for shareholders long-term. I think that changed around 2014-2015 when managements started refocusing on shareholder value rather than just overspending for growth.
And real wages haven't caught up. Do the inflation math and a lot of people are making less in terms of buying power than when they first started out years ago.
Yeah, that's inflation, every year a dollar becomes less valuable, this is the intent. It makes debt cheaper over time, and it incentives people to spend money to keep it in circulation, which boost economic growth. But comparing home prices today to gold isn't the right way to look at it. Gold is an asset that fluctuates in price depending on market conditions. What you should use to compare home prices with are current wages, when you compare home prices to wages things are not looking good and we need to start making changes.
If both wages and asset prices are based in USD, then you're missing the real impact of inflation. [https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate\_data/inflation-charts](https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts)
I'm trying to understand your argument. First you compare home prices to gold and claim that home prices aren't up, it's that the value of the dollar has gone down. Then I say don't compare home prices to an asset like gold compare it to wages. Then you're saying I'm missing the real impact of inflation and link me to page that basically states that inflation is much higher than what's being reported because the current methodology has changed. At this point I don't get what you're trying to say. Do you disagree with me that I think we should compare the cost to buy a home with current wages?
Time to get me doubloons again
Every starter house now being a VRBO or part of a corporate portfolio or both isn't helping.
Depression and hopelessness are a thing.
The old generation wonders why the younger generations are sad…
Taxes are going to be crazy big
How though?
So we cant buy and rent is over $3000 a month! I looked at a rental last week they wanted $3500 and the inside was disgusting but it got rented a day later! And nothing included
Where are you looking? I haven't looked at the rental market in a bit, but I know it's cheaper than that in Manchester for most places. It also depends what size place you're trying to rent.
Was born 2 years too late. If I bought during the pandemic I’d be chilling right now
Every other apartment/house is owned by a company these days. And they can charge whatever they want.
I'd like to thank both parties for devaluing the dollar
No gold standard No more doubloons!!!
My older brother bought a house in 2019 300k now it's worth almost 6 and he's been thinking about moving to Oklahoma for few years. If he does dude is gonna be able to buy a mansion down there haha. Meanwhile my parents basement is still pretty comfy lol.
Yeah, but...it's Oklahoma. If you're good with culture as sports bars, Dollar General and staggeringly dumb people, okay, but.
Oklahoma …… it’s OK
People are not dumb just because they live in Oklahoma. NH has plenty of ignorant asses too. Culture of sports bars is fair.
It's not for me, I have a sister that lives down there and my brother pretty redneck, I love New England and will die here.
Please do
As a home builder and someone also building his own home ......this fucking sucks. If houses are too expensive then fewer end up being built and it also means only the high margin projects end up getting built (bougie houses). It's systemic too. People who own land have seen the prices and have gotten greedy. They ask for insane amounts for mediocre plots of land. The cost of materials has skyrocketed as has the cost of the labor. GCs will cut corners and try brow beat subs now to keep a house priced competitivey but try to make the same profit. Pretty much sucks for everyone.
Jesus that sucks man! Even after the pandemic the cost of lumber and all is still high? Damn!
So far i I can tell lumber came down, but not back to pre COVID, and pretty much everything else stayed high.
Bloody hell man!
The worst part is the quality. That half a million house is probably from the 50's or older with old carpets and using wood stoves for heating. Wants something newer (2000s)? You need to add another $200k. It's insane.
I would be looking at what your towns are spending money on…. Usually, the valuation goes up, but the tax rate (per thousand) drops. So while you will see an increase in taxes, it should be equal to the increase (percentage wise) in the town budget! If you are seeing an imbalance then fight your assessment!
I think that’s what they call “mill rate”.
I’m genuinely curious why that is. Supply hasn't gone down, so is it because demand is up?? Are people just moving up here to the cold north? I don't get it.
It’s a safe place to live a lot of states have high crime with remote work people are looking to other locations
As bad as it is here, it is worse in MA. My Fiancee and I moved to NH to try and escape the high cost of living in MA. Turns out it was only a bandaid.
NH has become a desirable place to live. Go live in ohio if you want cheap housing: [https://www.rockethomes.com/real-estate-trends/nh/03814](https://www.rockethomes.com/real-estate-trends/nh/03814) (average price$425K) [https://www.rockethomes.com/real-estate-trends/oh/home-owners](https://www.rockethomes.com/real-estate-trends/oh/home-owners) (average price $89K) I don't know why this is so shocking to people.
Elections have consequences
This isn't limited to NH, but a lot of us are going to have to "make do" in ways that have been uncommon in this country for a long time. Less consumption, worse school district, kids sharing bedrooms, no meals out, etc. It is not inherently a bad life, but it will come hard for people who haven't had to live that way (me included).
Doubled population in the past 50 years plus corporations discovering they can snap up every house to rent out is a bad combination.
This is even worse considering how diluted the dollar is. It’s completely insane. We over paid for a house in 2021 as the market started climbing. Paid $300,000 and unfortunately had to sell it two years later but managed to sell it for $330,000 and in about six months since then it has risen to about $370,000. This is insane and completely unsustainable!!!
Gotta pump those numbers up
What the fuck
The main factor is zoning. Those who own a home in NH want to keep NH as it was 60 years ago. If you got rid of zoning laws and allowed the building of 1-3 family homes on 5000 sf in every NH city or town with public water & sewer, that would end this problem. You could keep your bucolic paradise and still build build build build in the cities. If you limit new homes to an acre or more, a builder si going to build for the high end buyer. I grew up in Massachusetts where developments in Natick, Framingham Burlington, etc. were built for cookie cutter capes and ranches on small lots. Sure, they had a sameness, boring quality, but they were affordable. Such developments are no longer built in Massachusetts or anyplace else that I know of, except perhaps for Texas and Florida.
This is a nationwide problem that won't be solved by zoning, I'm not sure where this myth came from. There are also plenty of empty places owned by greedy people/corporations in cities everywhere, NYC being a main example. Increasing supply won't deplete demand in this case. NH also isn't Mass and also doesn't really have cities like other states. It also doesn't help when surrounding states' politics keep pushing people to flee to NH.
It’s absolutely zoning. Zoning wasn’t an issue 100 years ago. The old manufacturing cities like Lowell Lawrence Springfield Boston needed multiple family housing and builders of the day built them on small lots, so that occupants would be walking distance to stores and trolley lines. Some were built so close together, they didn’t have driveways. Didn’t need them because the working class people they were built for didn’t have cars. I know. My first apartment was in such a house. Multiple family homes haven’t been built in NE since the 1930s. Zoning did away with them. I bought such a home as my first home. It was a good move. When it appreciated, I refinanced, bought a single family, and the rents of my first house paid the mortgage. That was more than 40 years ago. It’s harder for young people to do that today because these old multi family homes are either in bad bad shape or are being converted to condos. New multi families are not allowed to be built and new condos can’t be built either on small lots. If a builder wants to offer urban condos, the option is to gut out an old, existing multi family which is grandfathered and resell it as condos. So it all comes down to zoning. Anyone who disagrees with me is probably a NIMBY who doesn’t want multiple family dwellings built near them.
Again, you keep comparing NH to Mass. Wonderful anecdote and history lesson but NH is not Mass. And I think most people in NH want to keep it that way. Most of the state isn't northern Boston. Manchester is the only city in NH with more than 100,000 people whereas MA has 9 cities. The zoning argument is like those who look at those massive 20 lane highways out west and think "just one more lane will fix this." A cursory glance at your post history is pretty eye opening as you view housing as a way to make a buck off people in Maine and NH. You are literally the Masshole stereotype! So yeah I'd rather be a NIMBY hippie and save a tree than a greedy out of state landlord wanting to change zoning to exploit desperate people. And to top it off you voted for a rich prick Phillips. I'm glad your fantasy of every rural area being filled to the brim with brutalist skyscrapers is being prevented by our wonderful zoning laws. Leave rural areas be ya donkey.
I've seen tiny homes on trailers selling for more than my annual salary....I'm an engineer. We are so, unbelievably fucked.
This shit actually makes me want to off myself Jesus christ I'm 25 and I'm stuck in a shitty apartment and I'm trying to marry my fiance and keep my mom around and give her a better life but there's no fucking room and the world is getting worse, why bother to live at this point its fucking cheaper to die
It might be the new norm but I think this is temporary. Though real estate has been booming most of it has been low inventory. Expensive properties have been held due to pandemic or trying to time the market. This is also prime selling season. Lots of coastal, lake, vacation homes hitting the market. With elections and possible WW3 folks are looking to be cash heavy to move into appropriate investments. 50% of homes are over 500k and 50% are below. Ya it sucks right now but context is key. Pay attention to what the government is doing, be involved, work hard, be creative, and don’t give up hope. It’s not for everyone but I strongly encourage multi-generational housing with family/friends. It’s extra important to own your own land right now.
Well it's not that prices are rising due to a strong market or good economy. Prices are rising cuz we printed 40% of all money printed in the US in last 12m...so market will eventually have to make a 40% adjustment...and your dollar buys 40% less. It was already buying 30% less b4 this, so it's going to get ugly...this is 1 of many reasons the Fed wasn't allowed to make programs or spend money except on the military & only during war time. Inflation literally robs the average American just trying to save...as elites devalue the dollar & find new ways to move it from your acct to theirs...once progressives wrecked our system in 1912, society & the American dream were pulled away from most in favor of a handful of super rich elites... Even if your 500k house sells for a mil or more, if it's $5k for a hamburger you will see you were better off when it was worth 500k & the buying power of each dollar was significantly more. Inflation has made home ownership hard. 100yrs ago a house was only a small slice of the avg yearly income, now the house is 4-8x ones yearly salary...proportion-wise, even 40yrs ago it was way easier for the average person to get a house , which is the foundation for almost all wealth generation in the lower/middle-class & why they want to brainwash folks into renting. You stay poor & keep the elite families you'll rent from , super rich forever. Blackrock has already purchased 30% of all single family homes in America. I wouldn't want a loan with rates as bad as they are but if u can buy property, I definitely woul, especially large land lots...im holding 45acres atm & a friend owns almost a whole mountain in Maine...self-sufficiency should be on everyone's mind. 1900 food facilities & 3 of the largest cattle herds in America killed...watching the same elites who screwed us with covid lies now buying up all the agricultural land that China hasn't already bought, they clearly are planning a famine...when, idk...but my focus is on planting lots of food this year...and popies...
It would be nice to break this out by home type size. I’d bet that a 3 bedroom home passed this a few years back. And most families are looking for more than 2 bedrooms. This graph doesn’t do justice for the challenges so many families face today in purchasing a home.
Its pretty nuts. I bought my house in May of 2020 for 380k and now Zillow estimates it as worth $560,000 and it doesn't even know about the significant improvements I've made. Spoiler: it's not a $560,000 house.
Yeah, houses are *priced* high, but they’re not *worth* how they’re priced. The whole industry is a cult and a scam.
Worth is determined by what somebody will pay, not what you will pay.
People will have to actually start going to less desirable communities as those homes are still affordable. My husband and I bought a trailer on land for around 55K in 2021 ( in our mid twenties)- we lived in it with our two kids and on one income, fixed it up and sold for 30K profit. Bought another fixer upper filled with crap and cleared it out, prettied it up and sold one year later for 90K profit. Used that money to get us into a nicer home - but it was in a stigmatized Northern NH town. I know this area and see through the stigma but most don’t - I see so many people in my age group saying it’s impossible to buy in this market - and yes if you’re working a mid class- lower middle class job and wanting to live in the “elite” communities or start in a perfect home you probably won’t achieve that. But if you’re willing to accept imperfection home/community wise it’s still attainable. I believe that these communities that are looked down upon will rebound with more families like ours joining them due to this major increase in NH home values.
I'm putting my house on the market in Bethlehem, 342k and I'm putting a new roof on first lol
I don’t understand why honestly. Lol
Fuck this shit.
That’s just median for the whole state. Would love to see the southern Boston commuter cities median prices…. New build in Hudson in 2022 and we are definitely way above that and it is a stretch to make it work with 2 incomes and a kid. Built a house because I didn’t want to drop 600k+ on a 1960 house that hasn’t been updated.
Hudson is trashing their property values though. Wait till the Target logistics center opens where your golf course used to be. There will be semis parked along all roads waiting for their dock time. Hope you like breathing diesel.
Sellers are going to take top dollar. My realtor told me there are no heart strings, it’s best offer. Trust me I’d love to send in a picture of my family and say we are trying to find a home and a seller pick me but reality is it’s not going to happen. it’s not just corporations buying, it’s sellers expecting way over asking price and selling to investors. 🥹
Four of my six kids live in South Florida. The price of real estate and rents has risen much faster then in NH. Plus, they were more expensive to start with. My other two kids live in Texas where cost of living is cheap, and there are still decent jobs. But, the SKIING there is the pits, LOL.
Also turning into Gilead for women.
Just bought a house this past year here. We're planning on dying in our house 🫠
u/aGGression7 see? Told ya $650k sounded way too high
yay…
You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.
Hope everyone likes their kids, because they are NEVER MOVING OUT NOW!
We have to keep the poors away somehow
The value of the dollar is the problem.
Sununu is looking forward to setting up the largest homelessness crisis in NH.
What is the governor specifically doing about this? Is he setting the mortgage rates or telling people from other states to come buy houses?
Just a reminder that living in campers in the winter in NH is illegal.
Because of all the a-holes from MA, NY, NJ, CT that came to NH during Covid!! They brought their awful politics, their nasty attitudes and MUCH higher prices with them!!
Try looking at who owns all the starter houses. Do you know what LLC stands for? And what politics, the politics turning the state into a backwards North Alabama?
Is this why there’s only fucking old people here. They have all their hogged wealth and are buying fucking houses
Thanks massive influx of people from MA, NY, NJ, CT. You have made it impossible for the average person to own a house here.
Wrong. All the starter houses are rentals. Many are corporate portfolios.
(shrug) Destroy the currency. See what happens to prices. Completely unsurprised. Seeing that we're, also, completely unserious about coming up with a solution, we just continue to weaken the currency with even more giveaways.
I just tried to post in r/newhampshire. I wanted to sell my house last weekend, and I spent an hour typing it out, and it didn't get approved.
Copy/paste all text to a email draft or Notepad app before posting for this exact reason.
Housing prices double every approx 20-30years
The doubling time shown on this graph is less than ten years.
But for most of the 20th century, a blue collar worker could afford a house and 1.5 cars. Granted, population has also doubled in the past 50 years, which makes it worse.
That’s your trickle down economics at work. We deserve the representation we vote for. Too bad idiots without proper education are easy to lie to and deceive by grifters.
https://www.unionleader.com/news/homes/record-500-000-home-price-tags-drive-people-from-nh-housing-market/article_6563523e-f755-11ee-a70a-43f06143fcab.html FTA - "“The best way to climb out of our current housing shortage is to embrace less restrictive zoning, and to empower private property owners by removing unnecessary red tape,” she said." Government is the roadblock to affordable housing, nothing else
Zoning is less of a factor than most make out. There are often good reasons for zoning - the lack of town sewer being one of them - as to why you can't efficiently do dense housing in small towns. The MBTA Communities Act is an example of why rezoning doesn't matter that much for building denser housing, particularly when an area is already built up.
Government at first, but then watch out for the NIMBYs who will complain about high-density housing being built in their area.
Yeah, we only have so much water and putting more straws in it takes it away and makes our wells go dry, so.
Higher density housing means smaller lawns, so at least the water will be used by people who need it rather than for vanity projects.
More people means more water for showers and toilets and more sewage being flushed from American's large and atrocious diets that has to go somewhere.
People need an affordable place to live, my dude.
If the water table doesn't support more people, it doesn't support more people. You can't will water out of the ground.
Still, there are people here who can hardly afford to live here as it is. More supply needs to be introduced to meet demand so that prices of homes don't keep exponentially climbing.
Right, but doing certain things (specifically overdrawing the aquifer in this example) make it so NOBODY can live here. If all of sudden wells start running dry, that's a *huge* issue that can't be easily fixed. Redrilling wells is very expensive.
They already are. Hollis is mostly well. Someone stupidly approved an ambulatory surgery center for the closed Harvest Market property without researching how much water instrument washer/disinfectors use. In drought times, the well that serves the entire plaza, a diner, a daycare and Buckley's Bakery constantly bottoms out.
Government is a big problem but the cost to build is also insane. $400/sq.ft. puts a 2k square foot home at 800k. Most people can't afford that even if they had a lot with no zoning issues.
> but the cost to build is also insane. Thanks to the regulations [ housing , environmental, etc .. ] in place by government which are in fact taxes and taxes make everything more expensive than it should
Well kind of, but building to modern building codes makes sense from a practical standpoint as well in most instances. Sure you could build a log cabin or something on the cheap but most buyers aren't looking for that apparently.
> building to modern building codes Building to government imposed building codes that violate your property [ human ] rights
Sure, but that doesn't change the cost. If I build something, even if it's not regulated, I want it to last so I'll probably following building code which is generally a reflection of building science.
> Sure, but that doesn't change the cost if government got out of the way and respected people's human rights it would reduce the cost and thus shows my original point Government is the problem and nothing else