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Housing Market Stays Positive
by Jon Greenberg on
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May home sales in New Hampshire showed the third straight month of increases since February. The housing market is a far cry from where it was last year. The number of homes sold is down 6 percent and the median price is off by about 15%. But the latest report from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors does contain some brighter news. The pace of sales rose 20% from April and the median price edged up slightly, to $210,000 from $205,000.
Analyst Peter Francese says New Hampshire enjoys a price advantage over its neighbors and that bodes well for the future."The migration that we’ve seen from southern New England to New Hampshire will continue and I believe that homes will continue to sell."
Francese says a third of all sales are to out-of-staters. First time home buyers predominate. He worries about rising interest rates but says they are unlikely to be too much of a damper on the market.
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With hundreds of thousands of jobless people about to run out of all benefits, congress has moved to extend unemployment benefits by 14 weeks nationwide for those whose relief has run out, and up to 20 weeks in states — 26 currently — where the unemployment rate is over 8.5 percent.
For the moment, the extra 14 weeks is the number that applies in NH.
The legislation also continues the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers for another five months. It creates a new $6,500 tax credit for certain homeowners who want to buy another home.
At a recent talk to the Business and Professional Women organization I focused on two related issues: If this recession was our Katrina, how much damage did it inflict on the economic infrastructure? One thing we don't know is when credit markets will recover.
So it was with some interest that I read this article in the Washington Post. I think it captures our current economic situation, nationally, and points our eyes in the right direction as we look for signs of true recovery.
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