NH Housing Fix Starts With 'Starter' Homes, Free Market Advocates Say

By Leonard Robinson, NH Journal

Want to start fixing New Hampshire’s housing shortage? Start with “starter” homes.

That was the message of Americans for Prosperity’s recent “Boom or Bust: New Hampshire’s Real Estate Market” gathering in Goffstown. Lawmakers and economic experts argued for a state strategy of making it easier for developers to build in-demand single-family homes.

State Reps. Joe Alexander (R-Goffstown) and Mark Warden (R-Manchester) laid the groundwork this past legislative session to do so with broad reforms to the state’s housing code and legislation that reduces red tape during the building process.

Alexander, who chairs the state House Housing Committee, boasted of New Hampshire’s recent regulatory strides in HB 628, commonly known as “One State, One Code,” which codifies more than 300 municipal building codes into a single one for statewide use, and Senate Bill 188, proposed by state Sen. Keith Murphy (R-Manchester) which allowed homeowners to use third-party home inspectors rather than local municipal officials.

Both bills, Alexander said, were steps toward making New Hampshire less hostile to home builders who wanted to increase supply in the state.

“If you just create an environment in which they can build, like they’re going to build,” Alexander said. “You don’t have to give them money, no handouts, they don’t want that, they just want to be able to build.”

Also on the panel was Charlie Gardner, a housing and land-use expert from the Mercatus Center.

Nationwide, Gardner said, the greatest factor in building single-family or other “starter” homes is the cost of land. Restrictive zoning practices incorporated by local communities will result in only larger, more expensive homes being built and a shortage of supply for other home types, including manufactured homes and condominiums.

“It’s absolutely essential that cities allow for density to be built within existing infrastructure,” Gardner said. “If you don’t, you will see these homes disappear. That’s how starter homes were built traditionally, and that’s how they can be built today.”

Nationally, the housing market has begun to cool, but prices are far from low. In New Hampshire, prices are still setting records.

The most recent NH Realtors report shows the median single-family home price hit $576,000, up 6.7 percent from May 2025.

Meanwhile, an analysis by the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy found production of single-family housing in New Hampshire has remained at record lows for years, with less than 40% of the new housing permits issued in 2024 set aside for single-family homes.

Since August 2025, Alexander has been joined by Warden and others in the active proceedings of the Commission to Study the Historical Evolution of the New Hampshire Zoning Enabling Act, a commission proposed in 2024 by Alexander, passed in 2025, that has met four times since August and will conclude deliberations in November.

The commission has not been without controversy, especially after legislation was filed at the beginning of this year’s session to eliminate it. The New Hampshire Municipal Association has emerged as a vocal opponent of the commission, arguing that its existence was cover for a statewide central-planning mandate that would usurp the authority of local towns.

“Changes to the state’s zoning and land use laws have profound and long-lasting impacts on our municipalities and residents, affecting the quality of life in cities and towns for generations to come,” NHMA executive director Margaret Byrnes wrote in an op-ed.

Alexander, in turn, said on Monday that some municipalities have gone too far. As an example, he spoke of how Durham, which he referred to as the “People’s Republic of Durham,” tried to impose additional environmental review standards on top of those performed by the state.

“They literally wanted additional energy standards because they think they’re going to solve climate change in a town of 20,000 people,” Alexander said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, housing has emerged as a major issue this cycle for Republicans, including Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who has said addressing New Hampshire’s housing shortage is a “job for everyone.”

Warden, who also operates Porcupine Real Estate, a real estate firm for right-of-center clients relocating to New Hampshire, said some have had to delay their relocations due to the shortage of supply.

“People want a single-family home with a yard, and this could even be a small yard that has a little distance between themselves and neighbors,” Warden said. “We have actually been working with quite a few people who say they just can’t move yet until something changes in the pricing of housing in New Hampshire.”

Healthcare executives speaking at a roundtable earlier this month with Rep. Maggie Goodlander identified a shortage of affordable housing as one of the biggest challenges to addressing the state’s shortage of healthcare workers.

“We have travelers [travel nurses] that we have to use to staff our units, and we’ve had three of them cancel that were supposed to start this week,” one executive said. “They had to cancel because they couldn’t find affordable housing.”

“They get paid a lot, and they get a housing statement, and they still can’t find affordable housing.”

Alexander said that although not all Republicans are on board with many of the housing reforms, he believes it’s a winning issue for GOP candidates, especially if it’s framed in a property rights lens.

“Your neighbor shouldn’t be able to decide what you do on your own property, and if they want to decide these things, they should buy your property,” Alexander said.

For his own campaign, his message to voters on housing is clear.

“The priority will continue to be in cutting red tape if I’m re-elected,” Alexander told NHJournal. “There won’t be any increased spending, and I’m sure that the caucus doesn’t have any appetite for subsidies to developers.”

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This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.