Although it may not seem that way when it’s time to write the monthly check, a new statewide survey says rents in Concord are relatively cheap and aren’t rising very fast as compared with other cities in New Hampshire — at least as determined by the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment.
That doesn’t mean things are easy for renters, however.
Vacancy rates in the city, as in much of the state, are well below 2 percent, which economists say reflects nothing more than natural turnover — people moving due to work or other life changes — rather than a supply of vacant apartments to pick from.
And wages, especially for lower-paid work, aren’t keeping pace with rents. It would take 124 percent of the median income, or more than $46,000 a year, to afford the statewide median cost for an average two-bedroom apartment in New Hampshire.
Those are among the findings of New Hampshire Housing’s 2016 Residential Rental Cost Survey, an annual look at the state’s housing market via a large statewide telephone survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.
The report was issued along with several other analyses that combine to show a brightening scenario for New Hampshire’s economy, with an unemployment rate below 3 percent — the second-lowest in the county — and, just as significantly, an uptick in the percentage of working age people who are employed or actively looking for work.
That figure, known as the labor force participation rate, has been falling in New Hampshire since around 2000, a sign of our aging population and, since the Great Recession, of people getting discouraged about ever finding work.
New Hampshire’s labor participation rate went up in the past year by about a percentage point, to almost 69 percent, which still is about 9 percent points below the 2000 peak.
This improved economy is putting pressure on housing prices, not just in higher rents but in the past year via higher housing prices.
One hopeful sign that price pressure will ease is that the number of housing permits authorized in the state has risen by some 80 percent in the past five years, although the figure remains far below the 2005 peak.
On the other hand, there are signs that construction is concentrating on the high end of the market: The median purchase price of a newly built house in New Hampshire has risen about $100,000 since 2011 to $344,000, whereas the median purchase price of an existing house has hardly budgeted, going from $200,000 to $212,000 in that same period.
The number of housing foreclosures so far in 2016 is at its lowest rate since 2006, shortly before the mortgage crisis hit and sent foreclosure rates skyrocketing.