State officials recently celebrated the decision by two Massachusetts manufacturers – SynQor and Gregstrom Corporation – to relocate their operations to the Granite State, citing a more business-friendly atmosphere north of the border.

But those aren’t the only Bay State companies finding more fertile ground in New Hampshire.

Massachusetts developers are increasingly focusing on the New Hampshire market for major housing projects, primarily in the southern portion of the state.

New Names, Familiar Names

In Manchester, the Boston-based Jones Street recently finished up its 75 Canal St. project, replacing an old downtown mill building with a gleaming new 250-unit apartment complex.

In Windham, the Procopio Companies, based in Middleton, Mass., is currently building 68 townhouses that it hopes to complete by the end of 2026 – while at the same time it’s finalizing plans to build hundreds of new units in Londonderry.

In Nashua, Thorndike Development, based in Natick, Mass., is co-developing the old Mohawk Tannery site as part of a 10-year project to clean up the long dormant property and build 500-plus condominiums and apartments.

In Dover, Boston-based Cathartes is currently overseeing the Cochecho Waterfront Development in Dover, a mixed-use project that will include hundreds of new apartment and townhouse units when completed.

Some of the Mass. developers are new to the state, such as Thorndike Development.

Some of them have been doing business in New Hampshire for a number of years now, such as Procopio, Jones Street and Torrington, the co-developer of the West End Yards project in Portsmouth and sole developer of the recent Veridian and Sage projects in the same city.

‘A Lot of Money Flowing’

But all of the developers, as well as local commercial real estate brokers, agree that New Hampshire has become increasingly more attractive to Massachusetts companies and other out-of-state firms eyeing developments in the Granite State.

“New Hampshire has become a very active market,” says Matt Lefebvre, principal broker and owner of Downtown Realty, a Bedford commercial real estate firm.

“There’s a lot of money flowing into New Hampshire. It speaks well of New Hampshire and its economy.”

What’s the main attraction of New Hampshire to Massachusetts and other out-of-state housing developers?

First and foremost is the same problem plaguing other states, including Massachusetts: an acute shortage of homes for sale and rent amid a growing demand for all types of housing in the Granite State.

“New Hampshire offers strong fundamentals for multifamily development, including sustained population growth and housing supply constraints,” said Jay Bisognano, CEO of Torrington, which has developed hundreds of housing units in Portsmouth over the past eight years. “These dynamics support long-term rental demand, particularly for well-located workforce and market-rate housing.”

NH Towns ‘More Welcoming’

Not that everything is hunky dory for housing developers doing business in New Hampshire.

There are a number of housing supply constraints in the state, as Bisognano noted, not least the oftentimes-ferocious NIMBY opposition to new housing in many towns and cities.

But despite local zoning restrictions and other development obstacles, developers interviewed for this story say it’s still easier to build, if only slightly so, in New Hampshire than in Massachusetts, where there are generally more environmental, energy and affordability regulations confronting firms.

“It’s just harder to build in Massachusetts,” said Matt Ranalli, co-founder and chief investment officer at Jones Street, the developer of 75 Canal in Manchester and owner of the 134-unit Windsor Terrace Apartments in Hooksett.

“They’re generally more welcoming in New Hampshire. They want more investment. They want your business. They seem more interested in economic development,” he added

As a result, Ranalli said he sees Jones Street staying active in New Hampshire for years to come.

“We would like to do more deals,” he said. “And we anticipate even more investors will be crossing the border into New Hampshire to do business there as well.”

Mass. ‘Getting More Challenging’

Bryan Vitale, senior vice president at Procopio, agreed that New Hampshire has a competitive edge over Massachusetts when it comes to starting new housing projects.

“It’s just getting harder and harder to build in Massachusetts,” he said. “New Hampshire is rightly taking advantage of that – and they should. We’re still pro- Massachusetts. We’ll never give up on Massachusetts. But it’s just getting more challenging in Massachusetts.”

In New Hampshire, Procopio is currently negotiating with the town of Londonderry to finish the back portion of the large mixed-use Woodmont Commons project in the community.

If all goes well, Procopio hopes to build more than 300 housing units at the Londonderry site, some of them for-sale units and some of them so-called “build-to-rent” units aimed mostly at downsizing Boomers and others.

Vitale said Procopio is “actively working” on four other potential housing projects in New Hampshire. He did not elaborate.

Tuscan Village ‘Opened Floodgates’

Executives stress that New Hampshire firms, such as Brady Sullivan, the Stabile Companies and The Kane Company, are still the powerhouses of local multifamily housing developments.

It’s just that the New Hampshire housing-market pie, so to speak, has gotten bigger in recent years, especially during the COVID years, when more and more out-of-state residents rushed to buy homes in the state.

That surge in homebuying in New Hampshire definitely caught the attention of both out-of-state developers and investors, industry officials say.

Some CRE officials also credit businessman Joe Faro’s mixed-used Tuscan Village development in Salem for showing that large multifamily-housing project can be successful investments in New Hampshire.

“Tuscan Village kind of opened the floodgates,” said Procopio’s Vitale. “It proved that high-quality developments in southern New Hampshire can be viable.”

Many see additional out-of-state developers and investors drawn to New Hampshire.

“I see it as an increasing trend,” said Downtown Realty’s Lefebvre. “New Hampshire has simply become more attractive to investors and developers.”