What does a $ 1,200 monthly rental budget get you in the Granite State? The short answer—not much.
There’s no doubt about it. It’s getting harder and harder to find affordable apartments to rent in New Hampshire. According to a report from the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, the average monthly salary for renters in the state is $4,666, which is not enough to rent an apartment and comfortably cover necessities such as food, medicine, utilities, and other expenses.
The average monthly rent for an apartment in the state is $1,875, but according to Apartmentguide.com, that’s not enough to comfortably afford a rental unit for most New Hampshire renters. They recommend that rent should be about 30 percent or a little less of a renter’s salary, or in this case, $1,150 to $1,380 a month.
For that reason, we thought we’d see what is available to rent in the state for $1,200—safely within that recommended bracket. Needless to say, in the state’s cities, including Manchester, Nashua, Salem, and Portsmouth, rents are higher than in the state’s more rural and northern locations. In any case, there just isn’t much in the price range in the state, and much of what is available for $1,200 or less is small one-bedroom apartments, studios, micro-studios, and single rooms.
Where in the state can you rent a two-bedroom/one-bath apartment for $1,200?
In a word, very few places. In total, we found 14 listings on major apartment rental sites.
Zillow has six listings in this category: two in Keene, three in Berlin (two of which include heat), and two in Litchfield that don’t include utilities. Applicants have to meet HUD’s low-income limits. Apartments.com has no listings for this price, and ForRent.com lists a total of eight two-bedroom, one-bath rentals ranging from $1,000 in Kingston for a shared apartment to a 1,000-square-foot apartment in Keene, including heat.
What is available to rent in New Hampshire’s cities for $1,200?
According to Apartments.com, Rochester has the lowest average rent in the state, but the average 690-square-foot unit is the only city with an average rental price within our $1,200 budget. Nashua, Portsmouth, and Salem have the highest rents, with average rents of $1,962 to $2,650 per month for an approximate 700-square-foot apartment.
In this price range, there are few choices, and most are for small studios (400 to 600 square feet) or room rentals.
Nashua
Trulia shows a total of six listings in this price range in the city, including two rooms for rent at about $980, two small one-bedroom/one-bath units at $1,050 a month, and a studio at $1,095 a month with few or no utilities included.
Manchester
In Manchester, Zillow lists three apartments in that price range: two studios (most utilities not included) at $1,100 and one at $1,000. Apartments.com lists only two in Manchester: two 400-square-foot studios with a bath for $1,050 a month, utilities not included.
Salem
It was hard to find any listings for this price in this city on the Massachusetts border. Redfin and Zillow have no listings, and Apartments.com has two.
Portsmouth
This is one of the state’s largest cities and, because of its seacoast location, one of the most desirable.
There are few, if any, listings for the city in this price range. There is one 345-square-foot studio for $1,260 and one 435-square-foot studio for $1,290, with some utilities.
What does $1,200 a month get you in a college town?
Renter beware. Much of what’s available at this price point might seem affordable. But look closely, and you’re likely to see the monthly rent is for a single room in a shared house with up to three or four housemates. There are also seemingly good deals on monthly rentals in that price range, but check the fine print. That could be for just three summer months while students are back home on break.
Apartments.com listings show a 100-square-foot bedroom with a half bath in a shared space for $815 a month in Keene, home of Keene State College, and a 1,140-square-foot apartment for $775 to $900 per resident per month.
A 145-square-foot furnished room in a shared residence in Plymouth, near Plymouth State College, for $900 per resident per month.
And Zillow has two apartments in Durham, where the University of New Hampshire is situated, for $1,200 or less: one is $950 for a one-room unit in a shared apartment with four bedrooms and one bathroom.
What is New Hampshire doing to address the affordable housing problem?
There isn’t one answer to this. The federal and state agencies and individual communities are approaching the problem in different ways, including zoning changes, state funding, and community incentives to increase affordable housing construction.
New Hampshire is tackling the affordable housing crisis with a mix of state funding, zoning reform, local incentives, and homelessness-prevention programs. The biggest theme is to increase supply while making it easier to build and preserve affordable homes, according to the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs.
Programs like InvestNH, which provides funding to speed up construction and approvals for affordable housing projects, and the Affordable Housing Fund, which distributes low-interest loans and grants for the construction and renovation of housing, are helping to build new affordable housing and supporting community housing policies that advance these projects.
The State Council on Housing Stability has also drafted a strategic plan to address the affordable housing shortage.
