New Hampshire’s housing crisis has gotten so severe that it’s now crowding out higher-income doctors, managers and even top corporate executives.

A new study by New Hampshire Housing reports that a growing swath of the state’s workforce is currently struggling to find and afford housing across the Granite State.

In fact, only 15 percent of the state’s households today can afford a single-family home at the median price of $565,000, as of this past June, the report says.

And it’s not just home prices that are skyrocketing beyond the reach of would-be homeowners.

Local apartment rents have risen so high and fast that both working-class and middleclass workers, ranging from police officers to home health aides, are getting priced out of many rental units, according to New Hampshire Housing.

And only 4 percent of rental households can afford to buy a home at today’s median sale price, the report says.

“Those numbers are insane,” Nick Taylor, executive director of Housing Action New Hampshire, said of the report’s latest affordability findings. “We’re at the point now where the vast majority of people can’t afford housing prices in New Hampshire. The crisis is now certainly hitting the middle class – and it’s really impacting the entire economy.”

BIA: Even Professionals Squeezed Out

Mike Skelton, president of the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire, said it’s not just working-class and middle-class workers unable to find adequate housing in the state.

Physicians, corporate managers and even top company executives are getting discouraged about housing options in New Hampshire.

Higher-income professionals may have the money to afford homes in the state.

But their problem is finding conveniently located homes amid a severe housing shortage that’s sparked intense competition for any suitable properties that come on the market, Skelton said.

“I know of managers who have decided not to accept jobs here due to the housing situation,” said Skelton. “The housing crisis encompasses a much larger share of the state’s workforce than previously thought.”

Real estate industry figures, business leaders and policy makers have long warned that a shortage of housing in the state – mostly due to a lack of new construction in the last two decades – has been relentlessly driving up housing prices and posing a major threat to the state’s overall economy.

They note that the median age of New Hampshire residents, now at 43.4 years, is the second highest in the nation – and that the state desperately needs an influx of younger workers if it’s going to remain competitive.

But high housing prices are now literally driving young workers out of the state and discouraging others from moving here to fill open jobs, industry leaders say.

Report Hits Raw Nerve

A number of previous reports have sounded the alarm about the growing housing crisis in New Hampshire.

But the new report by New Hampshire Housing, the state agency also known as the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, seems to have hit a raw nerve, if only because of its relentless use of statistics to show how individual professions and industries are impacted by home prices.

The 15 percent and 4 percent affordability numbers, as cited above, are among the report’s most startling statistics.

But other facts also paint a grim picture of the state’s housing crisis.

In 1998, the sale price of a home was roughly 2.8 times higher than the median household income in New Hampshire. Today, the sale price of a home here is roughly 5.5 times the median household income, the report says.

Between 1998 and 2025, single-family home prices have shot up by 129 percent when adjusted for inflation, far beyond the rise in household incomes in New Hampshire, the report says.

To afford a home at today’s median prices, a household would need an annual income of about $182,000, the report says, which comes out to about $88 per hour in a full-time job. That income level is at the upper range ($64,552 to $193,676) of what is considered middle-class in New Hampshire, according to data reported by Yahoo Finance.

The report also found that workers on their own in the following employment sectors can no longer afford median apartment rents in New Hampshire, based on federal and state affordability data: fast food and counter work, childcare, retail sales, home health care, landscaping and groundskeeping, nursing assistants, light trucking, construction, elementary school teachers, police and sheriff’s officers.

And the report says hourly wages needed to afford apartment rentals in various parts of the state range from $20.25 in Berlin (Coos County) to $46.42 in Lebanon (Grafton County). Other expensive rental markets include Manchester ($39.40 per hour required), Nashua ($41.44) and Portsmouth ($45.52).

A ‘Flashing Red Light’ for State Leaders

Alexsandra Galanis, manager of research and data analytics at New Hampshire Housing and co-author of the new report, said the report clearly shows that the housing crisis in now reaching into every corner of the state – and the economy.

“It impacts every single person in New Hampshire,” she said. “Most people simply cannot afford today’s home prices. I hope this report a real eye-opener for future action. The numbers in the report should shock everyone.”

Taylor of Housing Action New Hampshire, a nonprofit housing advocacy group, said the new report’s findings should be a “flashing red light” for policymakers – and for the need to boost housing construction in the state.

“The housing situation is now impacting so many jobs and industries,” he said. “I hope this report serves as a wake-up call for many. It adds actual numbers to all the anecdotal stories we’ve been hearing about.”

BIA’s Skelton said the housing crisis is getting worse by the day – and the state needs to take bold steps to promote new housing construction.

“We need all types of housing, no matter where they are on the affordability index,” he said. “We need workforce housing. We need small homes, large homes, condos, apartments. We need housing of all types.”