A bill in the New Hampshire state Senate received support from groups across the housing industry at a hearing Feb. 5.
Sponsored by Sen. Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, the bill would redirect $5 million in real estate transfer tax money every year to the state’s affordable housing fund, administered by the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, plus a $10 million one-time payment to jump-start the fund.
The fund would provide financing or matching funds for affordable housing projects.
The money would come from from real estate transfer taxes.
“We recognize that this is a major ask,” Bradley told the Senate Finance Committee hearing. “Affordable housing is a critical component of our ability to maintain a growing economy. To attract young families … to the well-being of working families.”
Bradley cited other New England states’ dedication of major resources to affordable housing efforts, saying they “have a leg up on us.”
Ken Moller of the Hancock-based The Mollers Inc. real estate brokerage spoke in support of the bill as the voice of the New Hampshire Association of Realtors and its 6,500 members.
“The lack of affordability of housing for our workforce … is proving a hinderance to New Hampshire’s economic growth,” he said, adding that agents are “seeing the impact all the time.”
New Hampshire inventory is at its lowest level since 2004, he said, citing NHAR statistics.
Moller said NHAR supported the measure because it does not increase the real estate transfer tax, set at 1.5 percent statewide, and that the organization would oppose any effort to raise the tax.
“In general, in my area land prices are high, building costs are high, lumber costs are high and that pushes things,” he said, explaining why affordable housing was out of reach of many working-class buyers. “The cost [of building new housing] is exorbitant.”
Evelyn Whelton, a member of the Mount Washington Valley Housing Coalition’s board and a mortgage office with the Bank of New Hampshire, told the committee that at least half of her closings in the area are second homes or investment properties. Increasingly, she said, owners of multifamily buildings are converting their properties to short-term rentals using services like Airbnb. Not enough affordable housing is being built to keep up with demand in the area, she said.
“Unfortunately, that awesome economic driver in the Mt. Washington Valley has squeezed out the average buyer or renter,” she said, adding that a person earning the median wage in the food and retail service industry would have to work over 69 hours a week to find median housing prices affordable.
