Congress passed a housing law in July that quietly changes how manufactured homes get built. Manchester conditionally approved two separate Elm Street buildings that add up to 101 homes, and almost everyone is describing them as one project. Lowell has income-restricted condos starting at $199,000 with an open house Wednesday. And the food drive is back for its tenth year.
Skip to whatever you care about.
- The new federal housing law, and what it actually does here
- Manchester: two Elm Street buildings, 101 homes, two different projects
- Lowell: condos from $199,000, first come first served
- What the MLS knows: the state line is worth two weeks
- The tenth annual food drive
- What I am watching
The new federal housing law, and what it actually does here
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law in July. It is bipartisan, it bundles more than 60 bills that had been floating around separately, and most of what it does is unglamorous: modernize federal housing programs, cut duplicated review, widen a few financing channels.
Four pieces matter in New Hampshire.
The first is the one I would watch. Manufactured homes can now be installed directly on permanent foundations without the old federal chassis requirement. That chassis had to be built, hauled, and then left underneath a house that was never going to move again. Housing advocates expect the change to take cost out of one of the few genuinely attainable ownership paths left in this state.
Second, rural rental assistance can continue after an owner’s USDA mortgage is paid off, which keeps assistance attached to units that would otherwise lose it. Third, HUD and USDA now have to coordinate environmental reviews on jointly funded projects instead of running them twice. Fourth, banks get more room to invest in affordable-housing programs.
None of that builds a house. Local approvals, financing, and infrastructure still decide what actually gets constructed, and every provision here depends on how the agencies implement it. The honest read is that this removes friction from projects that were already close to working. It does not create projects that were not.
WMUR ran a good segment on it with Elissa Margolin of Saint Anselm College and Sarah Marchant of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund.
Manchester: two Elm Street buildings, 101 homes, two different projects
You will see the number 101 attached to Elm Street. It is real, and it is also the sum of two unrelated things.
At 516 Elm Street, Coral 516 Elm, LLC has a six-story mixed-use building with 50 homes, 7,875 square feet of first-floor commercial space, and 19 parking spaces below grade. It replaces the old Murphy’s diner property. The Planning Board conditionally approved an amendment on June 18 that raised the residential count from 39 units to 50.
At 1308 Elm Street, DEV, LLC has a separate six-story building with 51 homes, 3,468 square feet of commercial space, and a 25-vehicle garage, replacing an existing superette. The Planning Board conditionally approved that site plan on July 16.
Different parcels, different applicants, different votes, different conditions. Adding the unit counts together makes a nice headline and tells you nothing useful about either one.
The status language is worth being fussy about. Both are conditionally approved. That is not final approval, it is not a building permit, and it is not a construction start. Between here and a shovel, both still need City technical signoffs, applicable state and federal approvals, final architecture, traffic and construction management plans, and a pre-construction meeting. 516 Elm also needs Board of Mayor and Aldermen approvals for right-of-way encroachments and street modifications. 1308 Elm needs to plant one more tree.
Full detail and sourcing on both: 516 Elm Street and 1308 Elm Street on the development tracker.
One more Manchester item worth flagging early: a conceptual 44-lot open-space cluster subdivision went to design review on Bodwell Road in June. Design review is the earliest formal stage there is, engineering and traffic were not finished, and the review list is long. Nothing to react to yet. Worth knowing it exists.
Lowell: condos from $199,000, first come first served
Suffolk Place Residences at 408 Suffolk Street in Lowell has 33 income-restricted condominiums, 30 one-bedrooms and three two-bedrooms. Current program materials list prices from $199,000 to $330,000, generally for households earning 80 to 100 percent of area median income.
The original lottery is finished. Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership says remaining homes and future openings are now offered first come, first served, and it does not publish how many are actually left. That is the part to understand before you get excited: there is no posted number, so the honest answer about availability is that you have to ask.
If you want to pursue one, you need a complete application, a mortgage preapproval letter, and a valid HUD-approved first-time homebuyer certificate. Income, asset, long-term affordability, and resale restrictions all apply, which is the trade for the price.
MVHP currently lists an open house for Wednesday, September 16, from 5 to 7 p.m. Confirm it on the program page before you drive over, because event listings move.
Suffolk Place information and application requirements.
What the MLS knows: the state line is worth two weeks
I pulled 25,889 closed sales across Southern New Hampshire, the Merrimack Valley, and the North Shore, and held price constant. You have to hold price constant, or you are just discovering that expensive towns are different from cheap ones.
It barely matters. In the $300,000 to $500,000 band, the median Southern New Hampshire listing goes under contract in 6 days. Merrimack Valley takes 21. The North Shore takes 22. Move up to the $700,000 to $1 million band and the gap holds almost exactly: 8 days in New Hampshire, 21 and 22 in Massachusetts. Past a million it widens to 13 against 23 and 27.
Same money, same kind of house, opposite sides of one state line, two completely different buyer pools.
The practical version: if you are selling in New Hampshire, a quiet first two weeks is real information and you should treat it that way. In Massachusetts, two quiet weeks is just the normal pace and reacting to it will cost you money.
You can look up your own town and price band on Market Intelligence.
The tenth annual food drive
Last year the drive collected more than 5,000 pounds of food, roughly 40,000 meals. This September is year ten, and I would like it to be the biggest one.
The whole process is: put nonperishable items in any grocery bag, tell me the bag is ready, and I pick it up and leave you a reusable bag as a thank-you. Pickups start next week.
Most useful right now: canned fruit and vegetables, beans, rice, whole-wheat pasta, soup and broth, canned tuna, herbs and spices, and 100 percent fruit juice. Nothing expired, nothing in glass.
Everything goes to local food banks including the New Hampshire Food Bank and the Merrimack Valley Food Bank. VeraniCARES is run entirely by volunteers, so all of every donation reaches local charities working on veterans, food banks, and scholarships. I have given a portion of every sale to VeraniCARES for ten years and Verani matches it.
What I am watching
Manchester has not posted minutes or decisions from its September 3 Planning Board meeting, which leaves four projects in limbo: Wellington Road, the NeighborWorks development at Orange and Pearl, the 275 Jewett Street school conversion, and an extension request on the 30 Bryant Road subdivision. Exeter has the same gap from September 10. Until those post, nobody actually knows what happened, and the tracker says so rather than guessing.
Two hearings land tomorrow, September 15: Noah Estates in Sandown and Liberty Common in Kingston. Nashua has Putnam and Amherst on September 17, Salem has the Tuscan Village Master Plan Update on September 22, and Chester has the Village at Buxton Farm continued to September 30.
I am also rechecking two older entries, Colby Farm in Litchfield and One Oceanfront South in Salisbury, both of which have gone quiet long enough that I would not repeat their last known status without confirming it first.
