Dotplot
Maegan, Allison, Braedon
Our group project topic was Housing2.
Research Question: Given a limited income, such as college students living on a budget, how possible is it for them to rent/buy a home in New Hampshire?
Newspaper Articles:
http://www.nhbr.com/July-21-2017/Whats-the-economic-impact-of-second-homes-in-New-Hampshire/
http://nhpr.org/post/what-kind-housing-does-nh-need-and-why-dont-we-have-enough-it#stream/0
At $1,176 a month for a two-bedroom unit, median rents here are still cheaper than in Rockingham and Hillsborough counties, but apartments are equally hard to find. The vacancy rate, which was already extraordinarily low, continued its eight-year slide to 1.1 percent, lagging behind the state average of 1.4 percent.
The fastest growing occupations in the state pay wages that make higher rental prices harder to absorb.
New Hampshire’s low unemployment rate means that it can make use of new workers, especially in its growing fields, but the workers may find more favorable situations elsewhere – for instance, in metro Boston, where the minimum wage is 34 percent higher and the public transportation is more viable.
Housing and economic data from New Hampshire Housing’s November Housing Market Update show that Granite Staters are faced with an inadequate supply of single and multi-family housing to meet the needs of younger workers, families and older residents. This is because:
-Home prices still rising in most areas of the state
-Low vacancy rates and a shortage of units in rental housing in most regions of the state
-Affordability for renter households (paying no more than 30% of income towards housing costs) remains a problem in most areas of the state
Our research question states “Given a limited income, such as college students living on a budget, how possible is it for them to rent/buy a home in New Hampshire?”. Throughout our research process we have come to the conclusion on why it is much harder for young adults to purchase/rent a home. One of our articles state that “While New Hampshire is a relatively high-income state, perhaps well-positioned to afford high rents, many of the new jobs that are being created are in low-wage industries such as retail and food service.” Many young adults who have not landed a well-paying job straight out of school get sucked right back into the low-paying wages just to make ends meet untill a well paying job comes around. Also, looking back at our collumn and our geofacet graph, you can see there is a small amount of towns that actually have available rentals and there is a large amount of towns who clearly have little available rentals. This also makes it harder on young adults to find an apartment/house in their given income rate.