As they say in baseball, there’s always next year.

Barring a major unexpected spike in home listings over the next eight months, real estate experts say it appears the market is stuck through the end of this year with the current low inventory of homes for sale in New Hampshire.

Based on winter and early spring data, there have indeed been small increases in home listings here and there across the state – but it’s far short of what’s needed to get New Hampshire out of its historically low-sales rut that’s keeping home prices high, experts say.

“If there’s growth this year in [home listings], it’s going to be modest,” said John Rice, a broker at Tate & Foss Sotheby’s International Reality in Rye. “Things could change, I suppose. It could improve a lot. But right now it doesn’t look like that will happen.”

“Inventory is still a profound problem,” said Paul Cervone, a Realtor at Lamacchia Realty. “Inventory is a problem across the state – and across most of the U.S. I don’t see it changing soon.”

Inventory Hole Still Deep

In New Hampshire, real estate market-watchers are busy slicing and dicing the latest market data in an attempt to discern the true inventory picture across the state.

But every time they see a small glimmer of hope in the data, it seems there’s other data that dashes any optimism.

The New Hampshire Association of Realtors, for instance, recently reported that the number of single-family homes sold via the MLS in March rose 5.6 percent compared to the same month last year — an indication of rising market activity and inventory.

But for the first quarter as a whole, closed MLS sales were down 0.6 percent in New Hampshire, according to data.

Putting the first quarter numbers into longer-term historic perspective makes the inventory problem appear even more severe.

In the first quarter of 2026, there were about 1,400 homes for sale on average each month, compared to 3,600 homes for sale in the first quarter of 2019, before COVID, according to data.

And that 2019 inventory figure is down from 7,100 homes for sale in October 2016, the last time the New Hampshire market was considered in supply-and-demand balance, according to the NHAR.

Data from real estate data firm The Warren Group, publisher of The Registry Review and Boston’s Banker & Tradesman, shows the statewide median single-family sale price hit $500,000 in the first quarter, up from $485,000 in 2025.

The company’s data shows the number of single-family homes sold in the first quarter fell again, from 1,569 in the first quarter of 2025 to 1,461 this year. The figures include homes that were not sold via the MLS.

The cause of the inventory shortage?

An immediate cause is that homeowners with super-low mortgage rates, obtained earlier this decade, are reluctant to sell in today’s higher-rate environment.

Some of the same homeowners, many of them empty-nester Boomers, don’t want to downsize because they fear they won’t find alternative and affordable housing in today’s hyper-competitive real estate market.

But ultimately the inventory problem comes down to a lack of supply – and the lack of new home construction in New Hampshire, industry officials agree.

Still, an Improvement Over 2024

Setting aside the cause of today’s housing shortage, it seems everyone has their own data showing how various stats can so easily distort the true inventory picture in New Hampshire.

Adam Dow, head of the Dow Group-Keller Williams Lakes & Mountains, notes that homes for sale in March 2026 hit 1,513, up an impressive 46 percent from the 1,038 homes for sale during the same month in 2024.

But that 46 percent melts in significance when compared to the pre-COVID numbers, he said.

“Some people try to zoom into the numbers and say, ‘The market is improving,’ but it’s not improving that much,” Dow said. “At this point, I think it’s unlikely we’ll see major [inventory] changes soon.”

Tate & Foss’s Rice has his own inventory numbers for the Seacoast area.

He noted that active listings in the 13 Seacoast towns that he covers saw a 2 percent increase in the first three months of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025.

Not only is that a relatively small increase, it’s also coming off historically low number of 288 active listings in 2025, he said.

“It’s hard to draw any major conclusions from that data except to say the first three months of the year were basically flat,” he said.

But all of this doesn’t mean real estate players aren’t welcoming the recent modest increases in inventory, as small as those increases may be compared to past years.

Market Loosening – a Bit

The increase in listings in sales may not be driving prices down.

But they are helping to loosen the market a bit, such as by reducing the number of bidding wars for homes and giving buyers slightly more leverage in sale negotiations.

Dow noted that homes are staying on the market a little longer these days and that fewer buyers are waiving home inspections before purchasing homes, both signs of a slightly improving market conditions.

Dow said he’s even seeing an increases in home-contingency deals, in which prospective buyers are given more time to sell their old homes before closing on a new deal.

“Prices aren’t adjusting much. The needle isn’t moving much,” said Dow. “But the [small inventory increases] are opening the market up a bit to new types of buyers.”

Joannie McIntire, the former NHAR president and agent at Coldwell Banker J. Hampe Associates, said she’s also seeing some signs of the market easing a bit, such as buyers being allowed to put less money down when purchasing a home.

It’s still a seller’s market, but “less of a seller’s market” than it has been in recent years, said McIntire.

Yet as long as inventory remains historically low, McIntire said she doesn’t see fundament changes in today’s housing market dynamics.

“I still don’t see a clear path to lower prices,” she said.