Seacoast Real Estate Market Shows Early Signs of Cooling

Real estate agents working the Portsmouth area say the region's housing market, which saw years of rapid price appreciation driven partly by out-of-state buyers relocating during the remote-work boom, is showing early signs of cooling, with listings taking noticeably longer to sell than in the previous two years.

Local agents caution against reading too much into a single season's data, noting that Seacoast real estate has historically been volatile and sensitive to broader regional trends in the Boston market. Still, several point to a rise in price reductions on active listings and a modest increase in buyer negotiating leverage as signs that the most aggressive phase of the market may be behind it.

For prospective local buyers who have watched from the sidelines as prices climbed, even a modest cooling is welcome news, though agents caution that a slower market alone is unlikely to restore affordability without a meaningful increase in available inventory, something the region has struggled to produce given permitting timelines and limited buildable land near the coast.