Fewer Home Sales, Higher Prices

May home sales data from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors indicates fewer sales and higher prices compared to the same time a year ago.

Sales in May were 5 percent below May 2013.

Unit sales for the first five months of 2014 were 4,490, 7.9 percent below the same period in 2013. This year's median price of $219,000 is 7.9 percent higher than last year, to date.

"We need to be mindful that last year’s numbers marked significant increases across the board, so I caution anyone against being overly concerned with a few monthly dips in unit sales this year," Alan DeStefano, president of the New Hampshire Association of Realtors, said in a press release. "The larger picture is that we continue to be in a healthy, relatively balanced real estate market."

There is less inventory on the market than there was a year ago. At the end of May,
there were 12,358 single-family residences on the market in New Hampshire, a 5 percent drop from the same time a year ago, according to the association.