CONCORD — A new analysis of rental housing in New Hampshire has found that the tight, expensive market continues to get tighter and more expensive.
“Our 2019 survey … found that for the sixth year in a row, rents have increased,” said a June report from the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority.
The statewide median gross rent for two-bedroom units was $1,347 including utilities, an increase of more than 20% in the past five years.
Rents are most expensive in the southern parts of the state and the Seacoast, but they’re rising just as fast in central New Hampshire.
In Grafton County, the median gross rent — meaning that half of the surveyed two-bedroom apartments were cheaper and half were more expensive — was $1,217. That figure is about 15% higher than five years ago.
Meanwhile, the gross median rent in Sullivan County was $1,022, a 6.8% increase.
The report is based on UNH Survey Center data of “more than 23,000” unsubsidized (market rate) rental housing units around the state, which is roughly 15% of the total number of units in New Hampshire.
It found that the vacancy rate for two-bedroom units, by far the most common size, is incredibly low — less than 1%. The national vacancy rate is 7% and the rate throughout the whole Northeast is 5%, which is generally considered a sign that supply and demand are balanced, the report said.
Both Grafton and Sullivan counties had vacancy rates of less than 1% for two-bedroom apartments.
None of this is news to officials, either local or statewide. Laws encouraging so-called in-law apartments have been passed in hopes of creating more units in existing buildings, and the state is looking into whether to allow “tiny homes” to be built as another alternative.
By one estimate, New Hampshire needs 26,000 more affordable housing units to meet current demand.