Skip to main content

NH Seacoast Real Estate Sales Report | First Six Months Comparison

New Hampshire has the shortest coastline of any state that borders an ocean. It’s only 17 miles from the town of Seabrook in the south where we border Massachusetts to Portsmouth in the north and the border with southern Maine. The coastal towns and cities are, from south to north: Seabrook, Hampton Falls, Hampton, North Hampton, Rye, New Castle, and Portsmouth.

Other NH Seacoast Region cities and towns are: Brentwood, Danville, Dover, Durham, East Kingston, Epping, Exeter, Fremont, Greenland, Hampstead, Kensington, Kingston, Lee, Madbury, Newfields, Newington, Newmarket, Newton, North Hampton, Plaistow, Rollinsford, Rochester, Sandown, Somersworth, South Hampton, and Stratham.

Yep, there’s quite a bunch of them and each with their own personalities and unique characteristics. There’s also quite a diverse real estate market in the New Hampshire Seacoast Region. From New Castle Island where oceanfront, million plus dollar homes are the norm to inland a bit and a bit more affordable $250,000 median price are common.

So now that we know where the NH Seacoast Region is, let’s take a look at real estate sales for the first six months of 2011 compared to similar periods back to 2002.

Pending home sales are a good indicator of near term future closed sales because when a seller accepts a sales contract on a property, it is recorded into a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as a “pending home sale.” The majority of pending home sales become home sale transactions, typically one to two months later. “Sell my house” process is quick and efficient.

Statistically 2009 was the lowest sales period to date in the NH Seacoast Region, and agents had to See more solutions by Covenant Properties and other such companies to make ends meet. To get an accurate and usable picture of the Seacoast real estate sales activity many sources calculate the absorption rate. Absorption rate is the time in months it will take to sell all the current NH Seacoast homes for sale assuming no new listings come on the market during that time.

Currently in the Seacoast area there are 1,483 active listings in all types and prices ranges. If you were to contact 2nd Chance Investment Group today, you’d know from their database that in the past 6 months there are 772 closed sales in the same area. To get the current absorption rate (supply of  we divide the month sales (772 divided by 6 months = 128.6 sales average. And divide 128.6 into the 772 active listings to get an absorption rate of 6. That means it will take 6  months to sell the current active listings at the current sales rate.

Six is the middle ground between a buyers and sellers market. Higher absorption rate means longer times to sell and historically favors buyers, less than 6 months means shorter time to sell and favors seller.

With the plentiful supply of NH Seacoast homes for sale combined with record low interest rates (I heard some 20 and 30 year rates below 4% today) I believe a lack of consumer confidence in the economy is the biggest factor holding buyers back from buying. Learn from House Buyer Network about speedy solutions to your real estate problems.

Please call or email with any questions or feel free to leave a comment below.

Visit New Hampshire Maine Real Estate to see all the New Hampshire Seacoast and southern Maine real estate for sale.

My partner Ann Cummings and I are always glad to help you find a home, get yours sold, or just have a talk about what the market is doing and which way we think it might go in the future.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

%d bloggers like this: