A large supermajority of Granite State residents think the state’s housing market is in serious trouble as they struggle to afford basic necessities and pay winter heating costs.
That’s the verdict of the latest BIA Report on Consumer Confidence, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center for the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire.
The poll shows that of the 989 people researchers surveyed in November 46 percent still see their household’s financial condition as worse off than it was 12 months ago, an eight-month stretch where that camp has made up the plurality of respondents.
However, it marks the fourth straight month of declines in the share of people embracing this pessimistic view and the smallest share of Granite Staters who hold this opinion since May.
Forty-seven percent of state residents also said they struggled “a lot” or “somewhat” to afford necessities like food, clothing and electricity in the last 12 months.
This month’s poll also asked residents about the impact of high interest rates, with 28 percent saying it prevented them or made them less likely to buy a home. While the share of people who believe it’s a bad time to buy a house in New Hampshire fell from 83 percent in August to 77 percent last month, it’s still substantially higher than the share (62 percent) who held that opinion in February.
In addition, the poll queried residents about housing issues. The share of people who think “the affordable housing problem” in New Hampshire was “very serious” jumped from 52 percent in February to 73 percent in November, while the share of people who said it was either “somewhat” or “not very” serious shrank from a combined 47 percent to just 23 percent.
“New Hampshire’s strong economy continues to provide great opportunities for workers,” BIA President and CEO Michael Skelton said in a statement. “But the scarcity of housing continues to keep rent and homeownership difficult for many, especially those with moderate to low incomes. The high cost of housing also makes it more difficult to pay energy costs in New Hampshire that are among the nation’s highest. These remain top issues for our elected leaders to tackle to expand prosperity.”
While the poll showed Granite Staters’ strong desire for a fix to be found to housing costs, it provided few concrete clues as to which direction local and state officials should pick.
The largest share of respondents agreed with many real estate industry figures who say that “lack of supply” is the biggest cause of high housing costs. But that group only made up 22 percent of respondents, and the second- and third-largest batches at 11 and 9 percent respectively blamed “greed” and “out-of-state or wealthy buyers,” while 6 percent blamed “inflation or the economy.”
The remainder of the poll’s respondents were distributed in small slices, not exceeding 5 percent, among causes as diverse as “zoning or NIMBYism,” “inflated property values” and “President Biden or Democrats.”
