July 17, 2025 • 19 mins
In this episode, we dive into the findings of the NH Center for Justice and Equity’s latest report: Challenges to Homeownership in New Hampshire: Understanding the Unequal Access to the American Dream.
For generations, homeownership has represented stability, wealth-building, and upward mobility — but in the Granite State, that dream remains elusive for many. Produced in collaboration with New Hampshire Housing, this eye-opening report sheds light on the systemic barriers and disparities that continue to affect who gets to own a home in New Hampshire.
We explore:
- The historical and present-day factors contributing to unequal access
- Racial and socioeconomic disparities in homeownership rates
- The role of zoning, credit access, and income inequality
- Policy recommendations aimed at closing the gap
Whether you're a future homebuyer, policymaker, housing advocate, or simply want to better understand the forces shaping New Hampshire’s housing landscape — this conversation is essential listening.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Let's Move to New Hampshire. We're talking about
housing in New Hampshire today. The national average income for
the United States was $80,610. However, the median household income
in the Granite State is about $95,000 which might be
making it a little hard to achieve the American dream
of home ownership in the Granite State. Today we're.
(00:21):
Joined by Anthony Spoor, he's president and CEO of the
New Hampshire Center for Justice and Equity. Anthony will talk
to us about the organization's most recent report Challenges to
homeownership in New Hampshire Understanding the unequal access to the
American Dream. Hello Anthony, thank you for joining
us.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, thank you Mark for having us. I really appreciate
it and hope you're having a good day so far.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
As do I hope you are as well. Anthony, let's
talk a little bit about how this report came to be.
Tell us what was involved in putting it together.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I think everyone here who resides in New Hampshire appreciates
and understands the importance of home ownership and, well, the
lack of homeownership opportunities that exist currently for some of
our grant staters.
That being said, we believe here at the New Hampshire
Center for Justice and Equity that in order to kind
of fix a problem, you have to name it. And
we thought that we could do a service relative to
(01:13):
not only talking about the importance of home ownership, but
also the importance of homeownership as it relates to the
racial wealth gap here in New Hampshire and here in
the United States. That being said, if we were going
to do this report, we knew that we wanted to
work with the preeminent housing organization here in New Hampshire
because that
Give us additional validity, if you will, in terms of
the study and its contents. That's when I reached out
(01:36):
to our dear friends over at New Hampshire Housing, Rob Dapis,
their president and CEO, and in particular, Alex Galanis, who's
one of the lead researchers on the project, alongside Heather McCann,
and we decided that we wanted to do something together
that would allow us to bring the most up to-date
census data available, combine that with the most up to-date.
(01:58):
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information or data currently, you know,
often referred to as Huda data and be able to
report out those issues. My partner and our chief strategy
officer here at the New Hampshire Center for Justice and Equity,
Jill Porter, was a lead author on this piece alongside
our colleague Amy Costello, formerly of the Institute for Health
Policy and Practice. And so we decided that with the
(02:20):
support and the data that New Hampshire Housing could provide
and the data.
And the appreciation of the issue here that we could
come together and generate a report that could be useful
not only to our decision makers and stakeholders, but frankly,
the common grain of stater. All
Speaker 1 (02:38):
right, so let's get into the report itself. Inbound migration
in New Hampshire has increased, so what are our current
demographics in the state?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Sure, and this is, this is up a bit. And
so right now we have about 1.4 million people, residents
in the state. Now, I think
It's important, Mark, to talk to, to discuss about 63%
of our population reside in just three counties, right? That's Merrimack, Hillsborough,
and Rockingham. I also think it's important to, to notice
that most people think about New Hampshire in the New
Hampshire way, that the majority of people who live in
(03:09):
New Hampshire were not born here. In fact, 60% of
those who reside in New Hampshire were born outside of
New Hampshire. And let me be clear, these are the
majority of folks who are moving into New Hampshire are
from other New England states.
That said, our New Hampshire population is one of the
fastest growing populations in New England. It's the second fastest
growing population in New England. And again, just to reaffirm you,
(03:30):
this has been entirely due to the in-migration of folks
from outside New Hampshire coming into New Hampshire, and, oh
by the way, when we think about the workforce development
component of this, all those folks who are moving are 78.8%,
you could say 79% of those folks who have migrated
into the state, both domestically and internationally, are of working age.
(03:51):
Which is critically important to our industries here. I will say,
if you think about the work we do here at
the New Hampshire Center for Justice and Equity, it's important
to note that New Hampshire, just like the entirety of
the United States, is becoming more diverse. In fact, in
New Hampshire's communities of colors have more than doubled over
the past 10 years, and we think that's a good
thing as we think about New Hampshire and our competitiveness
(04:13):
in both the domestic markets and internationally, to have a
diverse population where everyone feels that they can belong and
Contribute to our state's greater good.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Much like a game of dominoes, certain things have to
line up uh before everything falls, and if COVID hadn't happened,
the remote working boom probably wouldn't have happened. What do
those two things have for impact on on what we're
seeing in New Hampshire?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I agree. I think the what COVID did have a
particularly impact of people moving, you know, let us be clear,
you know, New Hampshire still has relatively low.
burden. And if you compare, you know, housing costs relative
to our other New England partners, you know, we still
represent a fairly affordable place to live, although that's becoming
increasingly more difficult. And so, yes, absolutely. And when you
(05:00):
think about the pandemic, the impact of low interest rates
and migration and things, it's definitely had an impact on
homeownership rates here in New Hampshire. But, but let me
give you a few numbers if I may. Now people
may think that the migration of folks in New Hampshire
has had a, uh, an
impact on homeownership rates, but, you know, when you look
at homeownership rates from, say, 2010 to 2023, homeownership rates
(05:24):
have been consistent overall and in particular when you look
at different age groups, which I hope we'll talk about
a little bit later, it's been about the same. And
it's been interesting as well, when you think about household
incomes as they've been a bit on, on the rise,
you know, what we found is that despite increases in
median household income, rates of homeownership have
(05:44):
stayed the same or decreased for some groups. Interesting. In addition,
we think about the impact on housing and availability, I
think right now we're less than 1% vacancy rates. About 71%
of households own their home in New Hampshire, we're 29% rent.
And when you think about who owns a home here,
(06:05):
and you think about the in migration things we talked about,
there's a big divergence in terms of who owns a
home in New Hampshire and who does not.
And so we look at our white households, they near
the national rate about 72% homeownership rates. Nationally for black families,
it's around 44%. Here in New Hampshire, it's 33%, almost
a 40% spread and for Latinos, it's around 43%.
(06:29):
And when you think about the disparities in homeownership rates,
they can be really attributed to a number of different things. Historically,
you know, things like restrictive covenants and other discriminatory practices
in the past. Example could be restrictive zoning ordinance, like
minimum lot sizes and those kinds of things.
Historical redlining by lenders and insurers, in particular access to
(06:50):
FAT lending, things like credit discrimination, predatory lending practices, the
impact of subprime lending, and frankly steering uh folks into
particular neighborhoods. Let alone, I think what we've seen, particularly
since COVID, has been the impact of folks purchasing second homes,
which largely stay uninhabited for the majority of the year,
(07:11):
or the impact of short-term rentals, i.e. Airbnb.
Bees and the disproportionate impact on areas of our state,
say the lakes region, other historically, uh, historical places where
folks like to vacation. We've seen an inordinate amount of
impact on certain communities, Conway being one in particular, where
we've seen that a negative impact on our homeownership opportunities
here in the Granite State.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I actually know somebody that works in Conway and had
to move out of Conway because it got too expensive
for him to live there.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Absolutely. And that has been largely been driven by the 2nd.
Homeowners and the inordinate increase of Airbnbs in the region,
making it unaffordable for those who have historically been living
there for decades.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Moving aside the vacation component and just talking about folks
that are are renting a place to live in year-round,
at this stage of the game, isn't it almost as
expensive to rent as it is to pay a mortgage?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It is
absolutely a, it is absolutely almost more expensive to rent
than it is to pay a mortgage, although I will say,
You know, right now, we're looking at, and we're at
an all-time high here in New Hampshire in terms of
the median sale price of about 540,000.
You're looking at the average rents here in Manchester, somewhere
between 2000 and 2200. And so, yes, they are becoming
(08:26):
increasingly more comparable. That being said, and all of that
puts additional pressures not only on the rental market, but
also on the homeownership side. As you know, I think
there's something you've heard our partners at New Hampshire Housing
talk about, we need somewhere upwards to 90,000 housing units
by 204.
to accommodate the expected need. So, there's a lot of
(08:48):
pressures out here for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
We heard you talk about home ownership increasing in the state,
but not necessarily home ownership by people who are granite
staters by birth, but folks out of state are are
picking up a lot of this real estate. How does
that balance or imbalance affect things?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
What I'd like to go back to that imbalance is
really talking about uh
A few things. One is, let's talk about the issue
of supply. You know, right now, the vacancy rates in
terms of housing supply on the market are less than 1%.
If you're gonna have a healthy market, you're gonna be
somewhere around 5% vacancy rates. So we have issues of supply,
which is obviously, and just to kind of give you
(09:25):
some numbers for folks who are out there listening to
think about. Again, last week, the New Hampshire Association of
Realtorors reported the medians.
Sale price for a home in New Hampshire in June
was 400 $500 and $40,000. And Mark, this is up
from the previous high all-time high of $514,000. Now, again,
I'm gonna go back to some numbers that you quoted earlier.
(09:47):
The estimated median income household, household income in New Hampshire
ranges around 96 $6,838 right?
So, let's go back to this. If you were to
purchase the former, the previous all-time high, which was $514,000
it would require an annualized household income of upwards of
(10:08):
$175,000 a year.
If the median household income in New Hampshire is $96,000
this literally means that there's no population group in New
Hampshire that can purchase a median priced home in the
grand estate today.
And that's a problem. It's a problem for our long-term growth.
It's a problem for our long-term opportunities as we think
about young people who are getting out there hoping to
(10:30):
start families, if delaying them. And there's a whole host
of reasons why this has become an issue now. Other
than just a lack of income and the ability to
afford a home, now we're looking at other issues that
are having another negative impact on some of our
Younger folks, debt to income ratios, they're at an all-time high.
Credit histories, right? When we think about student loans and
those kinds of things, insufficient collateral, right? Sometimes there's things,
(10:54):
things like incomplete credit applications, and because you're telling to
your earlier point about the cost of renting, how can
I afford to save for a down payment when I'm
paying as much in rent as I would be paying
for my mortgage?
So these issues, now debt to income ratio is by
far the predominant reason why folks are being denied a mortgage.
And let me be clear, blacks and Latinos had a
(11:16):
higher mortgage rates than other racial or ethnic groups in
New Hampshire, but this issue of affordability, income, supply, and frankly,
the lack of investment by state government is only making
the situation worse.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
You
Said $175,000 combined income is sort of the magic number
you need to to pick up a median priced house
these days in the granite state. If somebody isn't making
$1750 a year, what options do they have? What should
they be doing?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Well, I, I think there are not a lot of
options available right now for folks, which is part of
the pickle that we find ourselves in, which is why
it's so important that we as a state continue to support,
in my opinion, our affordable housing providers out here, right?
And so just to kind of give a little plug,
right now, we have 4 or 5 affordable housing providers
here in the state, Neighbors Southern New Hampshire, Catch Neighborhood
(12:11):
Housing Services, Lakes Region Community Developers, the good.
Folks in the head in Littleton, you've got others out here, but,
you know, from a policy perspective, I think if we're
going to tackle this, I think first and foremost, it
requires a certain level of leadership in our legislature, but
it's gonna require some direct investment here in the state level.
And so, as you know, we're in a biennium, we
(12:31):
were just finished this biennium budget process here, and I'm
sorry to share with you and some of your listeners
that there was a lack of investment in the Affordable
housing fund. There was no investment.
And the Invest in New Hampshire program led by a
BEA and there was no investment in our housing champions
programs that allow municipal governments to support affordable housing in
(12:54):
the regions of the state. As we know, everything is
local here in New Hampshire, and those things are.
Very important. And so, I think a couple of things
are really important. One is this investment from the state,
the leadership that's provided. I think it's forums like this
so we can continue to talk about this issue. And
if we're gonna continue to um aspire to the prosperity
that we'd like to see every great estate benefit from.
(13:15):
We better focus on this issue of ensuring affordable housing
so young families can afford to live, work, play, and
pray in the communities in which they've grown up in.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I know you focused everything on the state of New Hampshire, but,
but let me ask you, Anthony, are there any states
that are fixing this imbalance? Are there any states that
are doing it right?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Well.
I mean, I will say, I it depends on, you know,
when you're talking about doing it right, I think there's
so many factors that can go into this, but I
think from the municipal and state factor, uh, issues, I
think Maine, the state of Maine has done an incredibly
good job looking at how they can support affordable housing
opportunities by really looking at issues of zoning.
I think it's been particularly important. And so I would
(13:55):
look towards, you know, I'd look towards Maine right now
is doing some good work, but I think at the
local level, one of the things I'd like to highlight
that I think is, is really, really important, and we
talked about this issue before of, you know, what are
some of the issues that keep people from being able
to access a mortgage, and one of them is down
payment assistance. You've got programs right now and partnerships in
the gran estate that are really.
(14:17):
directly on this that give individuals and families the opportunity
to stack capital. What I mean by that is this
is that New Hampshire housing now has a down payment
assistance program. I think it allows a family eligible to
up to $150 almost $30,000 in down payment assistance, which
would have a direct impact on their down payments, but
also their debt to income ratios because it would increase
the overall debt. You also see organizations like Ahead in Littleton,
(14:40):
New Hampshire, New Hampshire
North Country, partnering with philanthropy. In particular, I'd like to
highlight the Tillotson Fund, the Neil and Lise Tillerson Fund
there that's based in the North Country that supports uh
co-ops in parts of Grafton County. They've come together, they
brought resources together that now can allow a family up
to $30,000 in down payment assistance for first-time home buyers
(15:01):
and those individuals. And so there's some things taking place
at the local level.
I think it's gonna be a combination of local solutions
combined with state support that ultimately is gonna allow us
to achieve that goal of 90,000 housing units by 2040,
which everyone agrees is super important.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Let's talk a little bit about demographics, uh, as you know,
I kind of swim in the world of media on
a daily basis, and in the world of media, the
sweet spot demographic has always been aged 25 to 49
or 25 to 54.
But these days, probably people 55 plus are the ones
that have more money to spend, aren't they? Well, they
Speaker 2 (15:38):
are, you know, they are more people to spend. And
you look at home ownership rates by age, I mean,
some things have remained constant. For example, let me just
give you a number for, for those grant staters under
the age of 35, 41% own their homes, the majority
are renters. As you start to look at the different
age bands, 35 to 44, 45 to 54, that's where
you're seeing a big jump. And so,
(15:59):
For example, if you look at those between the ages
of 45 to say 45 and older, their homeownership rates
range anywhere between 74% and 75% to 78%. So yes,
they've definitely got more money to spend, for sure, and
they've got more equity in their homes. But the question
I would ask you is, where do they go? And
so you see many families who are saying, gosh, I
(16:19):
love to downsize, or maybe I'd like to move to
a different neighborhood or whatever, but at the end of
the day, not only do I have to
To sell my home. I've got to acquire a new
home at a much higher rate, and I'm paying a
higher interest rate. And so what you're seeing people do
now is not move, which again is putting an additional
burden because as older people aren't moving out of those
homes and or downsizing, making room for larger families who
(16:41):
are going to move in, it puts additional pressure on
this issue of supply because our older families who traditionally
would be out of those units have nowhere to go. So, again,
another pressure point if you
On the housing situation here in the Granite
Speaker 1 (16:54):
State. On a national level, it's predicted that folks renting
their home will increase nationally. What about in the state
of New Hampshire? What's our outlook?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I think it's gonna be a similar outlook here in
the granate, that's for sure. And that's why it's so
imperative that we look to create what I call rental
opportunities and frankly, for that matter, home ownership opportunities at
all stages of life. And I think that's the view
we are encouraging people to think about.
housing opportunities for all stages of life. So I think
about my young daughters, 24 and 21. My daughter, 24
(17:27):
years of age, is looking to move out to find
her first apartment, and where is she to go? Let's
say she would advance and her and her boyfriend she'd
be dating a number of years decide that they want
to marry. Where are they going to go with their
first little small home? And so, how do we create
housing opportunities for all stages of life, whether it be
rental opportunities that are both affordable for, for
Young families and for young people who are starting in
(17:48):
their careers, but also those mid-level professionals and those growing families,
but then ultimately, what are we doing for our seniors,
providing the opportunities to sell their homes, take what they've
earned over time, and maybe get into uh more housing
that's more appropriate for where they're at in terms of
accessibility and those kinds of things. So housing again at
all stages of
(18:08):
life.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
You mean I'm not gonna get my senior discount if
I buy real estate?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Mark, there is no discount on real estate
today. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And that's a valid point too, Anthony, is that prices
probably are not going to be nose-diving anytime soon, are they?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Prices are not gonna be nose-diving anytime soon. I think
we're gonna be in this situation. And let me be clear,
I heard one of my colleagues and one of my dear,
dear friends, a person I appreciate and respect so much,
Rob Dapi in New Hampshire Housing say this. We didn't
get into this situation overnight, and we're not gonna dig
ourselves out of this situation overnight.
It's gonna require what I call the three P's, a
lot of patience, an awful lot of persistence, and some perseverance,
(18:45):
and a combination of us working across sector, across geographies,
both in the public and private sector to rectify this
issue because every sector of our economy is impacted by
this issue of housing, whether it's housing, access to affordable childcare,
or access to affordable healthcare. These are the things that
drive communities and encourage people to move into these
(19:06):
communities.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
The report is called Challenges to Home Ownership in New
Hampshire Understanding the unequal Access to the American Dream. Anthony,
is the report available online? It
Speaker 2 (19:16):
is available online and you can find us at NHCJE.org. So,
and again, that's NHCJ.org. Click on our resources tab and
not only will you find this report, but you'll see
a number of other
Reports that we've developed over time that's really intended to
provide our greatest haters and our stakeholders with information that
(19:36):
help inform the decision making moving forward. So look for
us online. We're not hard to find.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Anthony Po, president and CEO of New Hampshire Center for
Justice and Equity online at NHCJE.org, very informative, thank you
for spending time with us.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Well, I appreciate the opportunity so much and thank you again.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
For let's move to New Hampshire, I'm Mark Erickson.
Welcome to Let's Move to New Hampshire. We're talking about
housing in New Hampshire today. The national average income for
the United States was $80,610. However, the median household income
in the Granite State is about $95,000 which might be
making it a little hard to achieve the American dream
of home ownership in the Granite State. Today we're.
(00:21):
Joined by Anthony Spoor, he's president and CEO of the
New Hampshire Center for Justice and Equity. Anthony will talk
to us about the organization's most recent report Challenges to
homeownership in New Hampshire Understanding the unequal access to the
American Dream. Hello Anthony, thank you for joining
us.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, thank you Mark for having us. I really appreciate
it and hope you're having a good day so far.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
As do I hope you are as well. Anthony, let's
talk a little bit about how this report came to be.
Tell us what was involved in putting it together.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I think everyone here who resides in New Hampshire appreciates
and understands the importance of home ownership and, well, the
lack of homeownership opportunities that exist currently for some of
our grant staters.
That being said, we believe here at the New Hampshire
Center for Justice and Equity that in order to kind
of fix a problem, you have to name it. And
we thought that we could do a service relative to
(01:13):
not only talking about the importance of home ownership, but
also the importance of homeownership as it relates to the
racial wealth gap here in New Hampshire and here in
the United States. That being said, if we were going
to do this report, we knew that we wanted to
work with the preeminent housing organization here in New Hampshire
because that
Give us additional validity, if you will, in terms of
the study and its contents. That's when I reached out
(01:36):
to our dear friends over at New Hampshire Housing, Rob Dapis,
their president and CEO, and in particular, Alex Galanis, who's
one of the lead researchers on the project, alongside Heather McCann,
and we decided that we wanted to do something together
that would allow us to bring the most up to-date
census data available, combine that with the most up to-date.
(01:58):
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information or data currently, you know,
often referred to as Huda data and be able to
report out those issues. My partner and our chief strategy
officer here at the New Hampshire Center for Justice and Equity,
Jill Porter, was a lead author on this piece alongside
our colleague Amy Costello, formerly of the Institute for Health
Policy and Practice. And so we decided that with the
(02:20):
support and the data that New Hampshire Housing could provide
and the data.
And the appreciation of the issue here that we could
come together and generate a report that could be useful
not only to our decision makers and stakeholders, but frankly,
the common grain of stater. All
Speaker 1 (02:38):
right, so let's get into the report itself. Inbound migration
in New Hampshire has increased, so what are our current
demographics in the state?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Sure, and this is, this is up a bit. And
so right now we have about 1.4 million people, residents
in the state. Now, I think
It's important, Mark, to talk to, to discuss about 63%
of our population reside in just three counties, right? That's Merrimack, Hillsborough,
and Rockingham. I also think it's important to, to notice
that most people think about New Hampshire in the New
Hampshire way, that the majority of people who live in
(03:09):
New Hampshire were not born here. In fact, 60% of
those who reside in New Hampshire were born outside of
New Hampshire. And let me be clear, these are the
majority of folks who are moving into New Hampshire are
from other New England states.
That said, our New Hampshire population is one of the
fastest growing populations in New England. It's the second fastest
growing population in New England. And again, just to reaffirm you,
(03:30):
this has been entirely due to the in-migration of folks
from outside New Hampshire coming into New Hampshire, and, oh
by the way, when we think about the workforce development
component of this, all those folks who are moving are 78.8%,
you could say 79% of those folks who have migrated
into the state, both domestically and internationally, are of working age.
(03:51):
Which is critically important to our industries here. I will say,
if you think about the work we do here at
the New Hampshire Center for Justice and Equity, it's important
to note that New Hampshire, just like the entirety of
the United States, is becoming more diverse. In fact, in
New Hampshire's communities of colors have more than doubled over
the past 10 years, and we think that's a good
thing as we think about New Hampshire and our competitiveness
(04:13):
in both the domestic markets and internationally, to have a
diverse population where everyone feels that they can belong and
Contribute to our state's greater good.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Much like a game of dominoes, certain things have to
line up uh before everything falls, and if COVID hadn't happened,
the remote working boom probably wouldn't have happened. What do
those two things have for impact on on what we're
seeing in New Hampshire?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I agree. I think the what COVID did have a
particularly impact of people moving, you know, let us be clear,
you know, New Hampshire still has relatively low.
burden. And if you compare, you know, housing costs relative
to our other New England partners, you know, we still
represent a fairly affordable place to live, although that's becoming
increasingly more difficult. And so, yes, absolutely. And when you
(05:00):
think about the pandemic, the impact of low interest rates
and migration and things, it's definitely had an impact on
homeownership rates here in New Hampshire. But, but let me
give you a few numbers if I may. Now people
may think that the migration of folks in New Hampshire
has had a, uh, an
impact on homeownership rates, but, you know, when you look
at homeownership rates from, say, 2010 to 2023, homeownership rates
(05:24):
have been consistent overall and in particular when you look
at different age groups, which I hope we'll talk about
a little bit later, it's been about the same. And
it's been interesting as well, when you think about household
incomes as they've been a bit on, on the rise,
you know, what we found is that despite increases in
median household income, rates of homeownership have
(05:44):
stayed the same or decreased for some groups. Interesting. In addition,
we think about the impact on housing and availability, I
think right now we're less than 1% vacancy rates. About 71%
of households own their home in New Hampshire, we're 29% rent.
And when you think about who owns a home here,
(06:05):
and you think about the in migration things we talked about,
there's a big divergence in terms of who owns a
home in New Hampshire and who does not.
And so we look at our white households, they near
the national rate about 72% homeownership rates. Nationally for black families,
it's around 44%. Here in New Hampshire, it's 33%, almost
a 40% spread and for Latinos, it's around 43%.
(06:29):
And when you think about the disparities in homeownership rates,
they can be really attributed to a number of different things. Historically,
you know, things like restrictive covenants and other discriminatory practices
in the past. Example could be restrictive zoning ordinance, like
minimum lot sizes and those kinds of things.
Historical redlining by lenders and insurers, in particular access to
(06:50):
FAT lending, things like credit discrimination, predatory lending practices, the
impact of subprime lending, and frankly steering uh folks into
particular neighborhoods. Let alone, I think what we've seen, particularly
since COVID, has been the impact of folks purchasing second homes,
which largely stay uninhabited for the majority of the year,
(07:11):
or the impact of short-term rentals, i.e. Airbnb.
Bees and the disproportionate impact on areas of our state,
say the lakes region, other historically, uh, historical places where
folks like to vacation. We've seen an inordinate amount of
impact on certain communities, Conway being one in particular, where
we've seen that a negative impact on our homeownership opportunities
here in the Granite State.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I actually know somebody that works in Conway and had
to move out of Conway because it got too expensive
for him to live there.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Absolutely. And that has been largely been driven by the 2nd.
Homeowners and the inordinate increase of Airbnbs in the region,
making it unaffordable for those who have historically been living
there for decades.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Moving aside the vacation component and just talking about folks
that are are renting a place to live in year-round,
at this stage of the game, isn't it almost as
expensive to rent as it is to pay a mortgage?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It is
absolutely a, it is absolutely almost more expensive to rent
than it is to pay a mortgage, although I will say,
You know, right now, we're looking at, and we're at
an all-time high here in New Hampshire in terms of
the median sale price of about 540,000.
You're looking at the average rents here in Manchester, somewhere
between 2000 and 2200. And so, yes, they are becoming
(08:26):
increasingly more comparable. That being said, and all of that
puts additional pressures not only on the rental market, but
also on the homeownership side. As you know, I think
there's something you've heard our partners at New Hampshire Housing
talk about, we need somewhere upwards to 90,000 housing units
by 204.
to accommodate the expected need. So, there's a lot of
(08:48):
pressures out here for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
We heard you talk about home ownership increasing in the state,
but not necessarily home ownership by people who are granite
staters by birth, but folks out of state are are
picking up a lot of this real estate. How does
that balance or imbalance affect things?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
What I'd like to go back to that imbalance is
really talking about uh
A few things. One is, let's talk about the issue
of supply. You know, right now, the vacancy rates in
terms of housing supply on the market are less than 1%.
If you're gonna have a healthy market, you're gonna be
somewhere around 5% vacancy rates. So we have issues of supply,
which is obviously, and just to kind of give you
(09:25):
some numbers for folks who are out there listening to
think about. Again, last week, the New Hampshire Association of
Realtorors reported the medians.
Sale price for a home in New Hampshire in June
was 400 $500 and $40,000. And Mark, this is up
from the previous high all-time high of $514,000. Now, again,
I'm gonna go back to some numbers that you quoted earlier.
(09:47):
The estimated median income household, household income in New Hampshire
ranges around 96 $6,838 right?
So, let's go back to this. If you were to
purchase the former, the previous all-time high, which was $514,000
it would require an annualized household income of upwards of
(10:08):
$175,000 a year.
If the median household income in New Hampshire is $96,000
this literally means that there's no population group in New
Hampshire that can purchase a median priced home in the
grand estate today.
And that's a problem. It's a problem for our long-term growth.
It's a problem for our long-term opportunities as we think
about young people who are getting out there hoping to
(10:30):
start families, if delaying them. And there's a whole host
of reasons why this has become an issue now. Other
than just a lack of income and the ability to
afford a home, now we're looking at other issues that
are having another negative impact on some of our
Younger folks, debt to income ratios, they're at an all-time high.
Credit histories, right? When we think about student loans and
those kinds of things, insufficient collateral, right? Sometimes there's things,
(10:54):
things like incomplete credit applications, and because you're telling to
your earlier point about the cost of renting, how can
I afford to save for a down payment when I'm
paying as much in rent as I would be paying
for my mortgage?
So these issues, now debt to income ratio is by
far the predominant reason why folks are being denied a mortgage.
And let me be clear, blacks and Latinos had a
(11:16):
higher mortgage rates than other racial or ethnic groups in
New Hampshire, but this issue of affordability, income, supply, and frankly,
the lack of investment by state government is only making
the situation worse.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
You
Said $175,000 combined income is sort of the magic number
you need to to pick up a median priced house
these days in the granite state. If somebody isn't making
$1750 a year, what options do they have? What should
they be doing?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Well, I, I think there are not a lot of
options available right now for folks, which is part of
the pickle that we find ourselves in, which is why
it's so important that we as a state continue to support,
in my opinion, our affordable housing providers out here, right?
And so just to kind of give a little plug,
right now, we have 4 or 5 affordable housing providers
here in the state, Neighbors Southern New Hampshire, Catch Neighborhood
(12:11):
Housing Services, Lakes Region Community Developers, the good.
Folks in the head in Littleton, you've got others out here, but,
you know, from a policy perspective, I think if we're
going to tackle this, I think first and foremost, it
requires a certain level of leadership in our legislature, but
it's gonna require some direct investment here in the state level.
And so, as you know, we're in a biennium, we
(12:31):
were just finished this biennium budget process here, and I'm
sorry to share with you and some of your listeners
that there was a lack of investment in the Affordable
housing fund. There was no investment.
And the Invest in New Hampshire program led by a
BEA and there was no investment in our housing champions
programs that allow municipal governments to support affordable housing in
(12:54):
the regions of the state. As we know, everything is
local here in New Hampshire, and those things are.
Very important. And so, I think a couple of things
are really important. One is this investment from the state,
the leadership that's provided. I think it's forums like this
so we can continue to talk about this issue. And
if we're gonna continue to um aspire to the prosperity
that we'd like to see every great estate benefit from.
(13:15):
We better focus on this issue of ensuring affordable housing
so young families can afford to live, work, play, and
pray in the communities in which they've grown up in.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I know you focused everything on the state of New Hampshire, but,
but let me ask you, Anthony, are there any states
that are fixing this imbalance? Are there any states that
are doing it right?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Well.
I mean, I will say, I it depends on, you know,
when you're talking about doing it right, I think there's
so many factors that can go into this, but I
think from the municipal and state factor, uh, issues, I
think Maine, the state of Maine has done an incredibly
good job looking at how they can support affordable housing
opportunities by really looking at issues of zoning.
I think it's been particularly important. And so I would
(13:55):
look towards, you know, I'd look towards Maine right now
is doing some good work, but I think at the
local level, one of the things I'd like to highlight
that I think is, is really, really important, and we
talked about this issue before of, you know, what are
some of the issues that keep people from being able
to access a mortgage, and one of them is down
payment assistance. You've got programs right now and partnerships in
the gran estate that are really.
(14:17):
directly on this that give individuals and families the opportunity
to stack capital. What I mean by that is this
is that New Hampshire housing now has a down payment
assistance program. I think it allows a family eligible to
up to $150 almost $30,000 in down payment assistance, which
would have a direct impact on their down payments, but
also their debt to income ratios because it would increase
the overall debt. You also see organizations like Ahead in Littleton,
(14:40):
New Hampshire, New Hampshire
North Country, partnering with philanthropy. In particular, I'd like to
highlight the Tillotson Fund, the Neil and Lise Tillerson Fund
there that's based in the North Country that supports uh
co-ops in parts of Grafton County. They've come together, they
brought resources together that now can allow a family up
to $30,000 in down payment assistance for first-time home buyers
(15:01):
and those individuals. And so there's some things taking place
at the local level.
I think it's gonna be a combination of local solutions
combined with state support that ultimately is gonna allow us
to achieve that goal of 90,000 housing units by 2040,
which everyone agrees is super important.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Let's talk a little bit about demographics, uh, as you know,
I kind of swim in the world of media on
a daily basis, and in the world of media, the
sweet spot demographic has always been aged 25 to 49
or 25 to 54.
But these days, probably people 55 plus are the ones
that have more money to spend, aren't they? Well, they
Speaker 2 (15:38):
are, you know, they are more people to spend. And
you look at home ownership rates by age, I mean,
some things have remained constant. For example, let me just
give you a number for, for those grant staters under
the age of 35, 41% own their homes, the majority
are renters. As you start to look at the different
age bands, 35 to 44, 45 to 54, that's where
you're seeing a big jump. And so,
(15:59):
For example, if you look at those between the ages
of 45 to say 45 and older, their homeownership rates
range anywhere between 74% and 75% to 78%. So yes,
they've definitely got more money to spend, for sure, and
they've got more equity in their homes. But the question
I would ask you is, where do they go? And
so you see many families who are saying, gosh, I
(16:19):
love to downsize, or maybe I'd like to move to
a different neighborhood or whatever, but at the end of
the day, not only do I have to
To sell my home. I've got to acquire a new
home at a much higher rate, and I'm paying a
higher interest rate. And so what you're seeing people do
now is not move, which again is putting an additional
burden because as older people aren't moving out of those
homes and or downsizing, making room for larger families who
(16:41):
are going to move in, it puts additional pressure on
this issue of supply because our older families who traditionally
would be out of those units have nowhere to go. So, again,
another pressure point if you
On the housing situation here in the Granite
Speaker 1 (16:54):
State. On a national level, it's predicted that folks renting
their home will increase nationally. What about in the state
of New Hampshire? What's our outlook?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I think it's gonna be a similar outlook here in
the granate, that's for sure. And that's why it's so
imperative that we look to create what I call rental
opportunities and frankly, for that matter, home ownership opportunities at
all stages of life. And I think that's the view
we are encouraging people to think about.
housing opportunities for all stages of life. So I think
about my young daughters, 24 and 21. My daughter, 24
(17:27):
years of age, is looking to move out to find
her first apartment, and where is she to go? Let's
say she would advance and her and her boyfriend she'd
be dating a number of years decide that they want
to marry. Where are they going to go with their
first little small home? And so, how do we create
housing opportunities for all stages of life, whether it be
rental opportunities that are both affordable for, for
Young families and for young people who are starting in
(17:48):
their careers, but also those mid-level professionals and those growing families,
but then ultimately, what are we doing for our seniors,
providing the opportunities to sell their homes, take what they've
earned over time, and maybe get into uh more housing
that's more appropriate for where they're at in terms of
accessibility and those kinds of things. So housing again at
all stages of
(18:08):
life.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
You mean I'm not gonna get my senior discount if
I buy real estate?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Mark, there is no discount on real estate
today. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And that's a valid point too, Anthony, is that prices
probably are not going to be nose-diving anytime soon, are they?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Prices are not gonna be nose-diving anytime soon. I think
we're gonna be in this situation. And let me be clear,
I heard one of my colleagues and one of my dear,
dear friends, a person I appreciate and respect so much,
Rob Dapi in New Hampshire Housing say this. We didn't
get into this situation overnight, and we're not gonna dig
ourselves out of this situation overnight.
It's gonna require what I call the three P's, a
lot of patience, an awful lot of persistence, and some perseverance,
(18:45):
and a combination of us working across sector, across geographies,
both in the public and private sector to rectify this
issue because every sector of our economy is impacted by
this issue of housing, whether it's housing, access to affordable childcare,
or access to affordable healthcare. These are the things that
drive communities and encourage people to move into these
(19:06):
communities.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
The report is called Challenges to Home Ownership in New
Hampshire Understanding the unequal Access to the American Dream. Anthony,
is the report available online? It
Speaker 2 (19:16):
is available online and you can find us at NHCJE.org. So,
and again, that's NHCJ.org. Click on our resources tab and
not only will you find this report, but you'll see
a number of other
Reports that we've developed over time that's really intended to
provide our greatest haters and our stakeholders with information that
(19:36):
help inform the decision making moving forward. So look for
us online. We're not hard to find.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Anthony Po, president and CEO of New Hampshire Center for
Justice and Equity online at NHCJE.org, very informative, thank you
for spending time with us.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Well, I appreciate the opportunity so much and thank you again.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
For let's move to New Hampshire, I'm Mark Erickson.
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