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Rent v Buy

Rent vs Buy in New Hampshire

Buying a home in New Hampshire is a major commitment. With a median listing price of $599,000, the buy-side math is heavily affected by your down payment, mortgage rate, and how long you plan to stay.

New Hampshire has no state income tax, so the homeownership tax deductions that itemizing filers can claim cap out at the federal layer. The calculator below pre-fills with national defaults; switch the state picker to New Hampshire to load the local numbers.

What the numbers say

Both home prices and property taxes in New Hampshire sit above national norms. Combined, they push the true monthly cost of owning well past the mortgage P&I you would see on a payment calculator. On a $599,000 home, property tax alone runs around $963 per month, before insurance, maintenance, and any HOA dues.

Average rent in New Hampshire runs about $1,700 per month, or $20,400 per year for a comparable home. That figure is the anchor for the rent half of the comparison. Rent growth, not just the starting rent, drives the long-run total - small differences in annual increases compound noticeably over a 7 to 10 year horizon.

New Hampshire's recent appreciation trend sits near 8.5% annually. For a long-horizon model, the national long-run FHFA House Price Index average runs closer to 3 to 3.5%, which is what we use as a conservative anchor in the calculator. Recent post-pandemic appreciation has been higher in many states, but the conservative figure protects against overstating equity build.

What no state income tax means for the rent-vs-buy choice in New Hampshire

New Hampshire has no state income tax. That changes a small but real piece of the buying side of the comparison: the mortgage-interest deduction (MID) and property-tax deduction only apply at the federal layer here, since there is no state-level itemized return to claim them against.

In practical terms, the standard deduction often beats itemizing for many filers, especially at the federal level after the 2017 reform raised the standard deduction. On a typical $599,000 home with a 20% down payment and current mortgage rates, the first-year mortgage interest may not exceed the standard deduction by enough to make itemizing worth it.

The takeaway: do not count on tax savings as a major reason to buy in New Hampshire unless your itemized total (mortgage interest + property tax + charitable giving + other deductible items) clearly exceeds the federal standard deduction for your filing status.

Want a calculator pre-filled with New Hampshire defaults? Click below; the state defaults load automatically.
Open with New Hampshire defaults

Home Purchase

Enter details about the home you're considering buying

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Renting

Enter details about your rental alternative

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Time Horizon & Market

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Detailed mode adds 17 more inputs including advanced assumptions.

Buying is cheaper over 7 years

by $31,485

Buying comes out ahead, though the margin is meaningful only if you stay the full term and your assumptions hold roughly true.

High Confidence

The result is robust across small changes to your inputs.

Total cost of buying

$387,138

Average $4,609 per month over 7 years

Total cost of renting

$207,949

Average $2,476 per month over 7 years

Equity Built

$245,691

What you've paid down on the loan principal over 7 years.

Net Sale Proceeds

$211,339

What you'd walk away with after selling, minus closing costs.

Investment Growth

$65,204

What the down payment could grow to if invested instead of used to buy.

This chart shows total dollars spent on each path, month by month. With your inputs and time horizon, renting stays ahead the entire time.

Frequently Asked Questions

New Hampshire's median listing price is $599,000. That is 35% above the unweighted state-level national mean of $443,255. The gap matters more here than the headline price suggests, because higher prices also mean higher absolute closing and selling costs.

New Hampshire's effective property tax rate is 1.93%. On a $599,000 home (the state median), that works out to about $963 per month, or $11,561 per year. Property tax is one of the largest fixed costs of owning that a renter does not pay directly.

Buying typically does not pay off within 3 years in any U.S. market once you account for 3 to 5% closing costs on the way in and 5 to 7% selling costs on the way out. In New Hampshire, with a median listing price of $599,000, those two transaction costs alone come to roughly $23,960 on the buy side and $35,940 on the sell side. Appreciation would need to be unusually strong to recover that within 36 months, so renting is almost always the financially better choice for stays this short.

Most lenders use a 28 to 31% housing-cost ratio. For New Hampshire's median listing price of $599,000 with 20% down at a 7.0% mortgage rate over 30 years, the monthly numbers run roughly: principal and interest $3,188, property tax $963, insurance $92, total $4,243. At a 28% housing-cost ratio, that implies gross annual household income of about $181,851. No HOA dues and no PMI in this estimate (20% down clears the PMI threshold). Use our affordability calculator to model your specific scenario.

Typical break-even points run 5 to 8 years across most U.S. markets. In New Hampshire, with a median listing price of $599,000 and average rent of $1,700 per month, the break-even depends most on your down payment, the mortgage rate you lock, and rent growth between now and your eventual move. Use our rent-vs-buy calculator to compute it for your specific scenario.

By Barron Hansen, Founder · Last reviewed