June sales fell 11.8%, but median price stood at $330,000

The number of sales of single-family homes in New Hampshire continued to fall in June — along with the number of homes available on the market — but the median sale price continued to rise, according to data from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors.

According to the Realtors, June sales were down 11.8% year over year and listings were down 16.7%. In addition, the months supply of inventory fell 51.4%, down from 3.7 months in June 2019 to 1.8 months this June. Sale prices, however, continue to rise, with the median price rising 4.8% year over year, from $315,000 in June 2019 to $330,000. And sellers were getting an average 99.1% of their asking price, up from 98.9% a year earlier. The picture was pretty much the same for condos. One difference was new listings, which didn’t drop by double digits, although they were down 5.1%.

And months supply of inventory fell sharply, dropping 1.6 months in June from 2.4 months in June 2019 — a 33.3% decrease.

The median sale price was up 11.7%, to $249,850, for condo properties.

National trends

Meanwhile, a recent analysis from real estate database company zillow shows that New Hampshire is not alone in facing a seemingly unrelenting increase in home prices. According to the online real estate database company zillow, sale price growth across the country has continued since the pandemic, although not at quite the same rate. But it looks to be headed for an upswing in the coming months.

The median price of U.S. homes sold in May was $263,408, up 4.6% year over year, zillow said. That was down from the 5.3% year-over-year growth in April, which followed a 5.5% year-over-year increase in March.

But recent data suggest sale price growth is likely to reverse course soon. New listings of high-end homes have surged, raising the median list price accordingly – list prices were up 4.3% annually as of early July, and have grown 5.8% just in the past two months, zillow said.

Buyers are outnumbering sellers, causing homes to typically sell just 20 days after hitting the market — the lowest level ever recorded by zillow — and allowing sellers to hold firm on their asking prices, with only 4.1% of active listings in the last week of June having undergone a price cut.

“As surprising as it might have seemed at the time, sellers who forged ahead with listing their homes this spring were richly rewarded, when buyers buoyed by recordlow mortgage rates flooded their listings with offers,” said zillow economist Jeff Tucker. “Now, word is getting out that the housing market is on solid ground, so more listings are belatedly rushing to market, extending the busy spring shopping season well into summer.”

He added that the “huge millennial firsttime home-buying wave is still cresting, pushing demand above what’s still very limited supply, so sellers are likely to find eager buyers for months or even years to come.”