The state’s median single-family home sale price for June rose 4 percent year-over-year while there were only three-quarters as many home sales in the state in the same period, according to new data from The Warren Group, publisher of The Registry Review.  

The state saw 1,237 single-family homes close in June 2020, compared to 1,713 in June 2019 – a 28 percent decline – and 1,946 in June 2018. Year-to-date in 2020, there have been 5,539 single-family sales, 21 percent off tally at 2019’s halfway point. 

The Warren Group reported that these sales had a median price of $310,000, compared $299,000 for the same month last year and $280,000 the month before. Year-to-date, the median price now sits at $300,000, compared to $279,933 for the year-to-date median sale price in June 2019. 

The drop in sales appears linked to lower numbers of sellers interested in putting their homes on the market. The number of new listings in June was down 16.7 percent year-over-year, the New Hampshire Association of Realtors reported, with the total number of homes for sale down 50.5 percent over the same period, to 2,719. The market now has 1.8 months of supply compared to 3.7 at the same time last year. At the same time, the number of days a home spent on the market in June actually increased from 43 to 50. 

While the Granite State’s homebuyers are struggling, its lenders are executing more mortgages than at any time in the last 10 years.  

Lenders inked only 1,153 purchase mortgages in June, a 22 percent year-over-year decline in line with the drop in single-family home sales, and saw the total dollar volume of those mortgaged drop 18 percent over the same period. 

At the same time, lenders closed 132 percent more refinance mortgages as historically low interest rates brought customers beating paths to their doors. In total, bankers executed 4,247 refinances in June compared to a mere 1,831 in June 2019. Year-to-date, New Hampshire lenders have closed 19,945 refinance mortgages, just barely beating out July 2013’s record of 19,572.  

With mortgage rates dipping below 3 percent for the first time in 50 years in mid-July, thanks in part to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive moves in the bond markets, it’s possible that number will continue to grow even more aggressively as 2020 continues.