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Average Sale Price Dips Slightly In New Hampshire
POSTED: 5:51 pm EDT August 27, 2007
NEW BOSTON, N.H. -- New Hampshire's real estate market has continued to slow down, but brokers said there is some good news for buyers and sellers.
From January through July of 2006, 7,853 homes were sold. During the same period this year, 7,096 have sold -- a nearly 10 percent decrease. Real estate experts said a house that took 109 days to sell in 2006 will take an average of 126 days this year.
Mortgage broker Joe Moriarty said that it's a buyer's market. He said sales are slumping, but some of the decline is seasonal, as families are more focused on going back to school.
"Inventory is up right now," he said. "And because inventory is up, that's going to mean that's there more supply for those homebuyers to buy. That, with the fact that rates are still at historic lows, those are all good things for homebuyers."
For those trying to sell their homes, Moriarty said they might want to lower expectations.
"They're not going to get the prices they got two years ago," Moriarty said. "And there's an old adage in real estate -- your first offer is typically your best offer."
Prices are down somewhat. In 2006, the average price for a home in New Hampshire was $307,000. This year, it's $304,000. Experts said sellers don't need to worry about another real estate crash.
"If you recall, in the late '80s and early '90s, when the housing market was in a downturn, so was the economy," said Kathy Corey Fox, past president of the New Hampshire Realtors Association. "We're not seeing that. The economy is still going strong in New Hampshire."
Some New Hampshire counties are seeing slower sales than others. Sales are off more than 20 percent in Carroll, Cheshire and Belknap counties. In Coos County, sales are down 16 percent, in Sullivan County, they're down 14 percent, and sales are down nearly 10 percent in Strafford, Hillsborough and Grafton counties
Sales in Merrimack County are 7 percent lower, but business is up 3.4 percent in Rockingham County.
Real estate experts said that the market is cyclical, and it could be a few years before it picks back up again.
Copyright 2007 by WMUR. All rights reserved. .
