June Home Sales

Inventory Creeps Up as Sales Tallies Fall

Affordability Index Hits Lowest Reading Since 2005


The statewide median sale price hit $440,500 in June, while a key measure of affordability sank to its lowest ebb yet.

New Hampshire’s inventory of single-family homes rose on a year-over-year basis in June as home prices hit another record high.

The statewide median sale price in June was $440,500 according to The Warren Group, publisher of The Registry Review. That’s nearly double what it was in June 2013 and a 47 percent increase from June 2019.

Statewide, there were 1,356 single-family sales, a 9 percent drop year-over-year and 21 percent down from the number of homes sold in June 2019.

Year-to-date, 5,232 single-family homes have been sold statewide, at a median sale price of $410,000. It’s the first time either the state’s monthly median sale price or the year-to-date median sale price has hit these levels.

They come as the average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-price home mortgage rose from 5.09 percent to 5.81 percent in mid-June, before ending the month at 5.7 percent, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey.

The increase could be seen in the pending sales count reported by New Hampshire Association of Realtors: from 2,038 single-family homes that went under contract in June 2021 to 1,725 in June of this year.

The NHAR Affordability Index hit its lowest mark since January 2005, the association reported, showing that the median household income in New Hampshire was only 70 percent of what would be necessary to qualify for the median-priced home in June. That figure is a roughly 31 percent drop from the same time last year.

A recent study by Harvard University housing researchers found that those buying in the Manchester metro would need to pull down $122,899 to make the median home there work with mortgage terms commonly used by first-time buyers – a 3.5 percent down payment on a 30-year, fixed-rate loan with zero points and a 4.98 percent interest rate – and April’s interest rates. The median household income for that region is $83,626.

As high prices and rising interest rates appeared to push some buyers out of the market, single-family inventory rose to 2,068 homes in June, NHAR reported. That’s 10.1 percent up from the 1,905 single-families the association reported were on the market in June of last year.

June also marked the first month this spring where inventory rose significantly on a year-over-year basis – May 2022’s single-family inventory was nearly even with the figure from May 2021 – after more than two years of negative year-on-year growth.

New listings were down, however, from 2,445 in June 2021 to 2,282 last month.

And sellers continued to receive more than they were asking for – the average share of list price they received sat at 104.6 percent, NHAR said, a slight increase over the 104.4 percent sellers got in June 2021.

The greater-than-100 percent share of list price indicates the presence of bidding wars or buyers offering over asking price. The figure has topped 100 percent since the early-pandemic housing market began functioning again. Before then, it had never broken 100 percent in the previous 15 years, NHAR records show.