The luxury home market is making a small comeback in New Hampshire after a year-long lull in sales.

The market for upscale abodes hasn’t reached the frenzied buying levels seen during and immediately after the COVID era, when mostly affluent out-of-state home buyers flocked to New Hampshire’s coastal, lakes and mountains regions to escape the pandemic and to work remotely from the relative comfort and safety of rustic settings.

But new data and anecdotal evidence suggest that, after a slowdown in high-end home sales in New Hampshire after the pandemic, big-ticket purchases are back in some areas of the state.

“We’re seeing more serious buyers coming from farther away,” Pam Perkins, a broker at Four Seasons Sotheby’s Realty, said of luxury home sales in the Lake Sunapee area and other parts of New Hampshire.

“Last year, it felt like we were dealing with a lot of browsers. But that’s changed. Homes are moving faster this year.”

“I’m starting to see decent demand for high-end homes again,” said Susan Bradley, an agent at Coldwell Banker Reality in Gilford, a market that includes Gunstock Mountain Resorts and large portions of Lake Winnipesaukee and other waterways.

“I do think there’s a pent-up demand. There’s a whole lot of money out there and there’s a lot of cash buyers.”

Mixed Picture from High-Level Stats

Of course, what constitutes “luxury homes” is in the eye of the beholder – and of statisticians.

According to the economics team at brokerage and listings portal Redfin, the definition of luxury is the top 5 percent of any market by price over a rolling three-month period of time – and $1.53 median is the median of that tranche of the market in New Hampshire for the period ending April 30.

Redfin data shows luxury home pending sales in New Hampshire increasing by 32 percent during that three-month period compared to last year – with prices increasing by 7.3 percent compared to last year.

That’s higher than the national luxury-market numbers (sales up 4.3 percent and prices up 3.6 percent) and considerably more impressive than the luxury-market numbers in neighboring Massachusetts (pending sales down 9.6 percent and prices up 7 percent).

Meanwhile, April data from The Warren Group, publisher of the Registry Review and Boston’s Banker & Tradesman, shows weakening overall year-to-date real estate activity through April in Carroll (sales down 17 percent and median single-family price down 5.8 percent) and Sullivan counties (sales down 43 percent and median price down 13 percent).

Carroll County covers large swaths of Lake Winnipesaukee while Sullivan County is home to Lake Sunapee and Sunapee Mountain.

For the state as a whole, single-family home sales, by comparison, were down 9.8 percent year to date through April while the median year-to-date price fell by 5.1 percent to $510,000, according to Warren Group data.

Not all counties associated with luxury homes have fared poorly of late, such as Belknap County, a classic mountains and lakes area that also includes portions of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Year-to-dates sales in Belknap County were up 2.6 percent through April while the median price was up by 2.75 percent compared to last year, according to data.

Seacoast Seeing Growth Above $1M

In Rockingham County, home to much-sought-after properties in Portsmouth and other Seacoast communities, the year-to-date numbers are mixed (sales down 3.4 percent with median prices flat compared to last year).

But John Rice, a broker at Tate and Foss Sotheby’s International Realty in Rye and a statistician for the Seacoast Board of Realtors, says a dive into the data shows there’s indeed strong activity stirring within the luxury market.

He noted that of the 63 pending sales so far this year within the Seacoast Board of Realtors’ coverage area, 25 of them were for homes priced at over $1 million and seven of those homes sold for more than $2 million.

“That $2 million territory is beginning to grow,” Rice said. “It’s starting to be a trend here.”

Meanwhile, of the 165 active listings in the Seacoast region as of late May, 83 of the homes were on the market for more than $1 million – and six of those 83 listings were priced at more than $6 million, he said.

“There’s just a lot of money out there,” Rice said. “There’s of lot of pent-up demand, too.”

Many real estate experts cite a relatively strong economy – and big stock market gains of late – for the recent boost in luxury-home interest in New Hampshire.

NH Drawing the Relocating Wealthy

In addition, New Hampshire is increasingly viewed across the nation, not just in the Northeast, as a “tax haven” for the wealthy, said Perkins of Four Seasons Sotheby’s Realty.

She said she personally knows of three affluent Silicon Valley buyers of luxury homes this year alone in New Hampshire.

“For years, COVID was the gift that kept on giving, driving buyers to New Hampshire,” said Perkins. “It was a fear-based market back them. But when all that eased up, the market demand dropped a bit. There was a lull. But now it’s picked up again.”

Perkins’ definition of luxury homes is considerably higher than Redfin’s definition of luxury homes.

Perkins said the luxury market she sees often starts in the $3 million to $3.5 million range – with the very top of the top market ranging from $8 million to $9 million per home.

Bradley of Coldwell Banker Realty in Gilford agrees that the luxury market, as she sees it, is roughly $3 million to $3.5 million per home and up.

And she estimates sales of such luxury homes in her market are up about 5 percent so far this year – with median prices running about 10 percent higher compared to last year.

She’s now even seeing some prices for luxury homes reach into the $8 million to $10 million range.

“That’s a relatively new phenomenon for us,” she said. “We [previously] weren’t considered a $10 million market up here. It’s changing.”