Manchester bucks trend with sales increase, much lower median sales price than state’s.
CONCORD, NH – Single-family home closed sales dropped to an all-time low for the month of February in New Hampshire, part of a national trend of an overall drop in home sales.
The news wasn’t all bad, though, as pending sales and listings in New Hampshire were higher than a year ago, according to the monthly market report from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors.
Manchester bucked the trend, with an 11.4% increase in closed sales in a very tight market and a median sales price of $474,000, well below the state MSP.
The median sales price statewide for a single-family home in February was $525,000, up from $512,500 in February 2025, but down from $540,000 in January. Median means that half of the homes sold for more, half for less.
The 12.4% drop in February closed sales, from 620 a year ago to 540, represents the smallest amount of closed sales in February since NHAR began providing the statistic in June 2013. [See chart].
Pending sales were up 11.2%, new listings up 1% and overall homes for sale increased 7.4% from February 2025. Inventory is still at a near-historic low, with 1.2 months of homes available, which means that if all of the homes on the market sold at the current pace with no new properties added, it would take 1.2 months to sell them. A 6-month supply is considered a healthy market.
Buyers got a little bit more of a break this year than they were getting 12 months ago, with homes staying on the market an average 46 days, compared to 44. The affordability index was also up slightly, to 61 from 59. That means that the average median income for New Hampshire is 61% of what’s necessary to make monthly payments on a median-priced home, including mortgage, insurance and property taxes.
Buyers in February, though, paid a slightly higher average 99.4% of list price, compared to 99.1% in February 2025.
Closed sales in the much smaller condominium/townhouse market were up 10.6%, with a median sales price of $405,000, up from $380,000 in February 2025. Pending sales were up 20.6%, and new listings up 0.3%.
The amount of properties for sale overall, though, was down 5.9%, and inventory dropped from 1.8 to 1.5.
February was more of a buyer’s market than it was a year ago, with properties staying on the market for an average 47 days, compared to 40, and buyers paying an average 98.9% of list price compared to 100.2%.
The affordability index was 79, the same as it was 12 months ago.
Hillsborough County, Manchester market
Closings were also down in Hillsborough County from a year ago – 141 compared to 149, a 5.4% drop. The county’s median sales price was $540,000, a 4.4% decrease from a year ago.
Manchester’s very tight market bucked the state and county trend, with a rise in MSP to $474,000 in February, from $420,000 a year ago. Closed sales were up 11.4%, with 39 compared to 35.
With half a month’s inventory available, the same 0.5 as last year, homes stayed on the market an average 17 days, compared to 15, and buyers paid an average 102.3% of list price, compared to 100.9% a year ago.
The city had 45 pending sales by the end of the month, compared to 32 a year ago, a 40.6% increase. New listings were down 2.8%, with 35 compared to 36. There were 30 homes for sale overall at the end of the month, a 15.4% increase over 2025’s 26.
The most expensive homes in the state continued to be in Rockingham County, on the Seacoast, where the median sales price for a single-family home was $620,000 in February, a drop of $660,000 from February 2025.
The least expensive homes in the state continued to be in Coos County, at New Hampshire’s northern tip, with an MSP of $210,000, the same as it was a year ago.
Five of the state’s 10 counties had lower median sales prices than in February 2025 – Grafton, Hillsborough, Merrimack, Rockingham and Sullivan.
Closed sales were down in all but Rockingham County.
National market
Nationally, single-family home sales were down 8.4% in February from the year before, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The slowdown followed a 5.1% increase in January, and modest gains throughout the fall, the NAR said. All four regions of the country showed both month-over-month and year-over-year deceases.
Median sales price was $396,800, an all-time high for the month, according to the NAR.
“Home prices have continued to rise across much of the country, in part due to low supply, which remains below pre-pandemic levels,” the NAR said in its monthly report.
Nationally, there was a 3.7-month supply of inventory, up 3.4% from a year earlier.