New Hampshire’s housing market remains historically expensive, even as price growth begins to moderate, according to a new report from the NH Fiscal Policy Institute.
State officials estimate NH will need roughly 90,000 additional housing units in the coming years to meet demand—a target that could prove difficult amid ongoing construction and regulatory challenges.
The median price for a single-family home reached $535,000 in 2025—up 78% from 2019—and has stayed at or above half a million dollars for the past two years. As of February 2026, the median stood at $525,000, underscoring what report author Jessica Williams describes as a market still fundamentally constrained by supply.
“Prices are being influenced by low inventory,” says Williams, noting that while listings have ticked up slightly since the pandemic, they remain far below what’s needed to meet demand.
Housing supply is typically measured in “months of inventory,” with six months considered a balanced market. New Hampshire averaged just 1.8 months of supply in 2025, a modest improvement from pandemic-era lows but still a fraction of a healthy level. That imbalance has helped push prices higher than in neighboring states like Maine and Vermont and driven faster growth than in Massachusetts.
The pandemic exacerbated the trend, Williams says, as remote work enabled an influx of buyers into more rural parts of the state. At the same time, long-standing constraints including zoning, construction costs, and limited new development have kept inventory tight.
Renters face similar challenges. The median cost of a two-bedroom apartment reached $1,833 in 2024, up 58% since 2015, driven in part by persistently low vacancy rates. Lower-income households are particularly affected: More than three-quarters of renters earning $35,000 or less are cost-burdened, spending a disproportionate share of their income on housing.
There are signs of cooling. From 2024 to 2025, home prices rose just 3.9%, the smallest increase in nearly a decade. But that slowdown is uneven. Some counties, including Grafton, still saw gains as high as 7%, while others such as Coös and Sullivan have begun to level off after years of sharp increases. In those areas, affordability pressures may be dampening demand.
“Incomes have not kept up with the cost of living,” Williams says. From 2019 to 2024, household incomes rose about 28%, far below the pace of home price increases, the report states. “That’s likely constraining people from entering the housing market in some regions.” For more information, visit nhfpi.org.
