Portsmouth apartment rent prices highest in NH Housing's 2023 report
PORTSMOUTH — Scouring the market for an apartment in Portsmouth? Prospective renters, prepare to pay up, as the monthly cost of a two-bedroom unit with utilities has more than doubled over the past decade.
The New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority reports the median monthly price for a two-bedroom apartment in Portsmouth stands at $2,497. That's higher than median costs for similar housing in four other select cities included in its 2023 residential rental cost survey, as well as all 10 New Hampshire counties and the state as a whole. The report was released this month.
Nine years ago, in 2014, two-bedroom apartments in Portsmouth had a median cost of $1,237. Just last year, the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority reported Portsmouth’s two-bedroom unit median price was $1,762.
The statewide median monthly rental cost for two-bedroom apartments, which includes utilities, is $1,764, an 11.4% year-over-year jump, the 2023 report states. In 2022, the statewide median cost of a two-bedroom unit was $1,584.
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“The challenges of New Hampshire’s rental market are related to the state’s limited inventory of for-sale homes, particularly those affordable for most first-time homebuyers,” Rob Dapice, executive director and chief executive officer of the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, states in the report. “That, coupled with interest rates hovering at 6-7%, has kept many households as renters, contributing to low rental vacancy levels because people are unable to achieve homeownership."
What do you have to earn to afford rent in NH?
“To afford the statewide median cost of a typical two-bedroom apartment with utilities, a New Hampshire renter would have to earn 137% of the estimated statewide median renter income, or over $70,600 a year,” the 2023 report states.
Last year’s statewide rental report showed that state renters would have to be making over $63,000 a year, which equates to 131% of the estimated statewide median income, to afford the cost of a two-bedroom apartment in New Hampshire.
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The additional four select cities cited by the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority in its 2023 report include Concord, Manchester, Nashua and Rochester.
Sample sizes of one- to four-bedroom units in each of the five cities, however, are not consistent, and Portsmouth had the lowest number of overall apartments surveyed in the report with 216. The report looked at 1,873 apartments in Manchester, which has the largest sample size.
Portsmouth's two-bedroom apartment median rent of $2,497, was followed by Nashua ($2,141), Manchester ($1,809), Rochester ($1,571) and Concord ($1,538).
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How far off is rent in NH from being affordable?
The report notes the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s median affordable price designation for a two-bedroom unit in the Portsmouth-Rochester fair market rent area is $1,911.
Just 7% of all two-bedroom rental units across New Hampshire are at or below the income-based affordable rent of $1,286, according to the organization’s findings.
“The state’s robust labor market has likely contributed to the continuous rise in household incomes. Part of the observed increase in renter income is likely a result of higher-income households remaining in rental units for longer periods, as the home purchase market continues to be tight, especially for first-time buyers,” the report says.
Vacancy remains low and that's a problem, NH report states
High prices and a lack of inventory continue to be trends in the state’s housing crisis, with the state seeing just a 0.6% vacancy rate for two-bedroom rental units, per the report.
The New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, this year and in years past, states that a “balanced market” features a rental vacancy rate of 5%.
“(New Hampshire’s) vacancy rate was last at 5% in 2009-2010, according to our past survey data,” the report states.
What does the housing market look like in Rockingham and Strafford counties and around state?
Rockingham County, the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority reports, has a unit vacancy rate of 0.4% and the third-highest median cost for two-bedroom rentals among all the state’s counties. The two-bedroom median cost in the county is $1,944 per month, trailing only Grafton County, which has a median monthly cost of $2,081 for rentals, and Hillsborough County, which has a $2,008 median monthly cost for two-bedroom units.
Strafford County was found to have a 0.9% vacancy rate and a two-bedroom apartment median monthly cost of $1,613.
The lowest two-bedroom median monthly cost among all New Hampshire counties is Coos County at $1,103.
“The residential rental market is, in many ways, a bellwether of our state’s housing market: there is a high demand for affordable housing, a very limited supply, and a very low vacancy rate for all types of housing,” the report adds.
The rental review survey, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center over telephone between March and May, contains data on 17,116 market-rate rental housing units across the state.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth apartment rents highest in state: NH Housing 2023 report
