Knowledge is power… NH Market Trend Report

The New Hampshire Association of REALTORS Market Trend report was recently published and this month it includes a survey that we encourage you to take. If you have bought or sold a home please take a few minutes and fill it.

The Market trend report was written by Peter Francease and is reprinted with permission from the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS.

More Knowledge Will Lead to More Sales by Peter Francease

This difficult business and economic environment means that more than ever, REALTORS® need to be better informed about who is buying real estate and why. Marketplace knowledge is marketing power. Lack of new information about buyers too often leads to unproductive marketing efforts, which no one can afford today.

With your help, many of the vital buyer attributes can become provided in reports to every New Hampshire REALTOR®.

Last month (July), almost 1,100 residences and about 280 condominiums were sold in New Hampshire. At this time we don’t know how many of those were bought as a primary residence, as a second home, as an investment, or as a retirement home. We also don’t know how many buyers were empty nesters, families with kids or came from out of state, or if the buyer was a first-time homebuyer.

Suppose we knew, for example, that a significant and increasing number of buyers were from another state, and that many of those buyers were retirees. Well, that would suggest adding accessibility information about properties to include proximity to healthcare facilities.
An increasing number of buyers from other states might also suggest investing in a more robust website and adding material about the advantages of living in New Hampshire. For the in-state homebuyer, a more information-laden website can also help in his or her search for a home that best meets his or her specific needs.
We have a pretty good idea how many households in our state have school-aged children, but we don’t know how many homebuyers are families with kids. And in any case, that fraction varies greatly from county to county. Finding out how many such homebuyers there are in your marketing area can help sell homes by emphasizing their family and kid-friendly attributes.
Here’s the pitch: With your help, many of the vital buyer attributes mentioned above can become known and provided in reports to every New Hampshire REALTOR®. All that is needed is for each reader of this message to click on the link below and fill out the short online survey for every home he or she has sold in the past month.
Please respond to this survey as soon as you possibly can. Here’s the link:

Your cumulative responses will be reported in chart and table form to you next month. Important: Individual responses will not be revealed. A detailed analysis of this new information will be part of my presentation at the annual meeting this fall. But the real value will come in future months, as we will be able to chart buyer trends and what they mean for New Hampshire REALTORS®.
Thank you for your participation in this new effort to find out more about the characteristics and motivations of the different kinds of homebuyers in our state.
As we mentioned above, nearly 1,100 residences were sold in our state in July. The table below shows the basic sales trends over the past several months as well as over the past year. Since April of this year, residential unit sales are up 35 percent statewide and have significantly increased in all but Coos County. Also since April, median sale price has held steady or risen in seven out of 10 counties.
This is a very different picture than we get by comparing year-over-year sales data, which show every county declining in both sales and median price. This trend suggests that as New Hampshire continues to economically outperform both the region and the nation, we should expect a better home selling environment in the coming months.

Source: Northern New England Real Estate Network (NNEREN). Statistics are based on information from NNEREN for the respective periods shown for the respective regions in the State of New Hampshire or all towns in the State of New Hampshire. All analysis and commentary related to the statistics is that of the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS® and not that of NNEREN.

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