New Hampshire

<h1>New Hampshire Pre-Foreclosure Rates in 2025: Fewer Defaults, but Struggles Persist Beneath the Surface</h1>
<h2>A Fragile Calm in New Hampshire’s Housing Market</h2>
<p>In May 2025, only 51 New Hampshire households were recorded as being in pre-foreclosure—a sharp decline from the chaos of the 2009 financial crisis, when more than 5,400 homeowners were on the brink of losing their properties. The numbers suggest a market that is cooling, or at the very least, pausing. Compared to April’s 62 filings, May saw a 17.74% decrease. When measured against the same period last year, the decline is even more marked—a 20.31% year-over-year drop from May 2024.</p>
<p>But numbers don’t always tell the whole story.</p>
<p>Behind each of those 51 filings lies a quiet anxiety spreading through living rooms and kitchen tables across the state. In cities where even modest two-bedroom homes can push the boundaries of affordability, and among families whose incomes have failed to keep up with inflation, <strong><a href="https://www.realtytrac.com/foreclosure/pre-foreclosure/">pre-foreclosure</a></strong> is not just a legal process, it’s the slow unraveling of home, hope, and financial stability.</p>
<h2>The Data Behind the Decline: A Historical Overview</h2>
<p>It’s easy to assume New Hampshire is on more solid footing. At the height of the housing crisis in 2009, statewide pre-foreclosures hit a staggering 5,463. That year wasn’t an anomaly, but rather the apex of a multi-year upheaval that began in 2006 and held steady through 2013.</p>
<p>With only one <strong><a href="https://www.realtytrac.com/foreclosure/pre-foreclosure/">pre-foreclosure</a></strong> officially recorded in 2022, their was a calm before the storm. But then, the slow tick upward resumed. The state saw 1,588 filings in 2023, and 1,167 more in all of 2024. So far, in the first five months of 2025, there have already been 309 cases.</p>
<p>While the monthly count for May 2025 may be lower than April’s, the aggregate trend since 2022 suggests persistent, if modest, distress.</p>
<h2>Economic Pressures Reshape Housing Stability</h2>
<p>The decline in pre-foreclosures is encouraging on its face. But to understand what’s happening, you have to look upstream at the economic pressures tightening the screws on working-class and low-income homeowners.</p>
<p>Inflation, while down from the historic highs of 2022, continues to cut into household budgets. The cost of groceries, child care, and utilities in New Hampshire has remained stubbornly high, even as wage gains fail to keep pace. Employment figures tell an uneasy story of underemployment—where people have jobs, but not enough hours, benefits, or earnings to maintain stability.</p>
<p>“These days, even a steady paycheck doesn’t mean you’re safe,” said Marie Richardson, a 52-year-old home health aide in Manchester who received her <strong><a href="https://www.realtytrac.com/foreclosure/pre-foreclosure/">pre-foreclosure</a></strong> notice earlier this year.</p>
<p>Richardson has lived in her modest ranch-style home since 2003 and always paid on time—until medical bills for her husband’s surgery wiped out their emergency fund. Then the price of heating oil exploded last winter. Now, her monthly mortgage—once manageable—has become another looming burden.</p>
<p>“I watched the banks get bailed out and the landlords get tax breaks. Meanwhile, if I’m late a month, someone’s ready to take my house,” she said.</p>
<h2>Neighborhoods on Edge</h2>
<p>While the raw numbers don’t specify which counties or cities in New Hampshire are most affected, anecdotal reports from housing advocates and attorneys indicate a concentration of <strong><a href="https://www.realtytrac.com/foreclosure/pre-foreclosure/">pre-foreclosure</a></strong> activity in southern areas like Nashua, Manchester, and Rochester—cities where rents continue to surge and affordable inventory has all but vanished.</p>
<p>“Clients tell us they’re afraid to even open their mail,” said Jordan Lee, a housing counselor with a nonprofit legal aid service based in Concord. “There’s still this sense of shame associated with defaulting, even when it’s completely out of their control.”</p>
<p>Among the hardest-hit are seniors on fixed incomes, single mothers, and immigrant families who often bought homes on the margins of affordability, banking on stable incomes and predictable costs—assumptions that have slowly eroded over the past five years.</p>


Market Reports

New Hampshire Pre-Foreclosures Down 20%

Pre-foreclosures in New Hampshire fell, but economic stress keeps many homeowners on edge as costs rise and safety nets shrink. The calm hides deep strain.

New Hampshire Pre-Foreclosures Down 20% - RealtyTrac

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