Picking up a newspaper this morning far from home… a screaming headline “Fourth-quarter home sales fall in 45 states” of course caught my attention. I was curious to read a firsthand local slant on the real estate market. Sales were down in New Hampshire for the last quarter as well … except for the last month in December, which was the best December for us personally in many years. Then January hit and it started to get really busy for us in Hampstead. Many of my fellow REALTORS said the same thing…it was if someone turned on the buyer tap. Interestingly, New Hampshire was one of the states that did not report their fourth quarter sales figures to the National Association of REALTORS but I know we were way down as well. It was a miserable 2007 real estate market for many in NH. This local (Florida) newspaper reports that something changed the first week of January and suddenly they got busy. In New Hampshire prices are down, interest rates are excellent…all the ingredients are there for the making of a most excellent spring buyers market plus we’re already seeing multiple offers. Real estate agents in Southwest Florida report more sales in the 1st month of 2008 than they’ve had in the entire previous year and that sounds just like my New Hampshire real estate market.
Spring market in New Hampshire has started early this year and I think it’s going to be a pretty good one in more ways than one.