An honest look at daily life, housing realities, and what surprises most people after they move here.
Commute Reality vs. Map Distance
One thing people who aren’t familiar with this area don’t consider is just how long it takes to get somewhere. Living in metro areas have their advantages, but for those looking to relocate to southern New Hampshire, it’s unlikely that they’re looking for the same thing as someone living in the city. That said though, traveling 20 minutes to the grocery store is not an uncommon reality.
How much time should one expect to spend driving?
The cities of southern New Hampshire afford most of the amenity one can find in larger cities. It’s less about living within them so much as it is about how close one wants to live in reference to them. Municipalities surrounding the cities tend to have higher average price points for that reason. But then there are pockets where several small towns will be gathered around “larger town” which serves as their hub.
An example of this is Peterborough and the eastern Monadnock Region. Towns like Temple, Greenfield, Dublin or Hancock might seem difficult to stand on their own as far as shopping and entertainment are concerned, but because Peterborough is an adjacent town, many people find that they have most of what they need within a 20-30 minute drive. There are parts of southern New Hampshire where the drive to a hub is farther still, especially when one travels far west. But there’s typically a hub town every thirty minutes or so in any direction.
School Choice Isn’t Just About Test Scores
It’s worth investigating schools not just on test scores, and also not just on public reviews. If the decision of schools weighs heavily in the criteria of where to live, evaluating based not only on what one can glean from their computer but also based on tours and faculty interactions is advised. Real estate professionals are prohibited from advising specifically on schools, and one should be cautious if they get advice to this end from their Realtor. Knowing not only what towns attend what school, but also the health and overall direction of the school board are worth investigating.
Property taxes are significantly affected by school budgets. Evaluating property taxes not on an individual basis but on the basis of municipalities may be important. It’s an investment, as a property owner, to pay the piper in this way, especially when one’s children are the beneficiaries. Minutes from school board meetings are publicly available online. A peruse of these when one begins to hone in on a district/school could be a worthwhile due diligence when schools are a determining factor on where to live.
Why Inventory Feels Worse Than the Stats Say
This is a conundrum that may or may not be unique to southern New Hampshire. When one evaluates the real estate market in a broad sense, they lose sight of what is happening in a micro sense. This is true when we regard national statistics especially because the rural northeast tends to trail metro markets by anywhere from 6-18 months. This is true on a more local level as well. If we evaluate state-wise statistics, or even county-wide, we can easily overlook nuance between regions and municipalities that don’t as easily fit into statistical criteria.
This is an area where knowledgeable real estate professionals are actually indispensable. Due to their local knowledge, they’re a second-to-none resource when it comes to some of the nuance from town to town or region to region. That assumes the real estate professional is actually local, and is one reason why the status quo preference has become “find the local Realtor.” When one is searching for micro-markets within an already small market (waterfront in the greater Monadnock Region, for instance), it becomes imperative to have an established and local real estate professional as these micro-markets tend to be very exclusive and often have people waiting to buy into them. These homes often sell before they’re exposed to the public market. That statement is becoming increasingly more true as inventory remains thin.