A First Look at NH Real Estate

A cousin of mine who lives in New Hampshire clued me in to his favorite NH Real Estate site, the NNEREN. site I include below. They list several other New England states, but the listings seem to be concentrated in New Hampshire. Since they don’t break them down by region, you have to know the names of the towns you’re looking in before you start. I consulted Google Maps and came up with the following potential areas:

Keene and surrounding towns, including Surry, Sullivan, Gilsum, Swanzey, Marlborough and Roxbury. I left out Dublin, Harrisville, Peterborough as they are all Northeast of Keene, but the truth is, the drive down to my folks wouldn’t be much different. Right along the Massachusetts border are Hindsdale, Winchester, Richmond and Fitzwilliam, and a little further up towards Keene or the East are Rindge, Jaffery and Troy. Along the Route #91 corridor, though not necessarily the shortest paths to MA depending on the locations of the exits are Westmorland, Chesterfield, Westchesterfield, Spofford, Walpole, Langdon, Alstead and Charleston, in no particular order.

Since I plan on using this post as my own real estate hunting reference for NH, I’m going to list all of the realtors who advertised on the “Best of Keene” map in 2006.

Carol Slocum www.carolslocum.com
The Masiello Group www.massiello.com
Greenwald Realty Associates www.greenwaldrealty.com
ReMax Town and Country www.nhvthomes.com

Since this is my first time in the buying mode, I’m entirely uneducated about realtor etiquette, and I don’t know if their listings will overlap or be unique. Certainly, there are aggregators of listings, sich as newspapers, The Real Estate Book – www.realestatebook.com and the Northern New England Real Estate Network - www.nneren.com. I haven’t looked at the non-brokered listings in a while, but I have a friend who has bought and sold a couple house through www.isoldmyhouse.com (at least I think that’s the name).

Just to get a feel for the ground, I started off in Alstead and was immediately shocked by the $3,400 real estate tax quote for a $139,000 handyman special on 4 acres. I can’t help but wonder if it was a typo since a place with 15 acres listed for $199,000 only carried a $1,621 tax bill, and a $110,000 place on .34 acres paid $2,050 in local tax. On the other hand, a modern contemporary priced at $495,000 on 2.5 acres was listed with $7,207 tax bill, so maybe the handyman special was assessed in the $250,000 range. The realtor I visited in Keene told me the tax rate there is $25 per $100,000, but that the surrounding towns were cheaper, usually in the high teens. That’s expensive compared to most towns in Massachusetts, but keep in mind there’s no state income tax or sales tax in NH.