Fear and Loathing in Dover’s Housing Market
2.21.25🚨The Biggest Friday Footnote yet. Housing battles, zoning wars, and what City Hall should be saying instead. (Plus: a mixtape, because you’ve earned it.) Buckle up.
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In the real estate market
I have a lot of respect for my Dover city leaders, but when somebody says something silly in the open press it’s time to call them out.
In last week’s real estate market report dated February 13th I wrote about—well, I wrote about a lot—but specifically about three bills representing a bipartisan effort to ease New Hampshire’s housing crisis by reducing barriers to building more homes, particularly in high-demand areas like Dover.
House Bill 577 (HB 577) – Would allow detached accessory dwelling units (ADUs) without excessive municipal restrictions. It aims to remove hurdles like minimum lot sizes, parking mandates, and aesthetic constraints, making it easier for homeowners to build small secondary homes on their properties.
House Bill 459 (HB 459) – Would prohibit towns from enforcing excessive minimum lot sizes beyond what is necessary for septic and sewer systems. This targets what Rep. Joe Alexander (R-Goffstown) calls “snob zoning,” which has historically kept lower-income buyers out by requiring large, expensive lots.
House Bill 631 (HB 631) – Would enable housing development in commercial areas by right, meaning developers wouldn’t need to undergo lengthy zoning change processes to convert commercial properties into residential use. This would pave the way for more mixed-use developments, such as turning struggling malls (like the Fox Run Mall) into residential hubs.
You can read the full-take here:
In the February 18th edition of the Foster’s Daily Democrat, Sarah Donovan reported that Dover City Manager Michael Joyal warned the bills would cause higher residential taxes, urban sprawl, and weakened commercial growth.
Specifically, Joyal said om regards to HB459 and HB631, “You basically are creating more sprawl. The community at the local level…their ability to control that would be stripped away. More and more residential properties will have to bear that tax burden if the bill passes.”
There’s a stark divide in Dover’s housing market right now. Take a look at the numbers:
Single-Family Homes for Sale:
Only 20 homes are currently for sale in Dover—this is a very tight inventory.
The average price is a staggering $1,561,750, while the median price sits at $1,130,000.
8 of these listings are new construction homes priced over $1M.
The average days on market (DOM) is 45, but one home has been sitting for 175 days—suggesting high-end homes may be lingering.
Condos for Sale:
11 condos are available, with prices ranging from $314,900 to $1.3M.
The average DOM is 75, which is notably higher than single-family homes.
Luxury condos are moving more slowly, while mid-range units are more competitive.
And we can take a look at what’s actually sold over the past six months:
Single-Family Homes (Last 6 Months)
57 homes closed, with a median sold price of $527,500.
The average DOM was just 13 days, and the median was only 7 days—showing strong demand for more affordable homes.
Only 1 home was listed below $400K, and it sold for more than asking.
Luxury homes are seeing price reductions, with the highest sale at $2.1M vs. a $2.25M list price.
Pending Single-Family Homes
11 homes are pending, with a median list price of $600,000—higher than the median sold price but well below the $1M+ listings.
The median DOM is only 6 days, showing that buyers are jumping on homes priced under $1M quickly.
Condos (Last 6 Months)
34 condos sold, median price $423,500.
The lowest sold for $200K, showing that the condo market offers some affordability.
The median DOM was only 5 days, meaning well-priced condos are selling fast.
The luxury condo market is slower, with a $1.3M listing still on the market.
Dover’s current inventory is dominated by expensive, new construction homes—many of which sit on the market. The lower end of the market has far fewer options, likely pushing many buyers out. Yet the bulk of buyer demand is centered around $400-$600k homes, except there is almost nothing available for under $400k, except the occasional condo or mobile home. The lack of affordable listings forces buyers into higher price brackets, which explains why the median pending is at $600k.
Developers are building homes at price points most buyers can’t afford. The lower and mid-range markets are completely underserved. The argument here is increased construction costs, which is true, we do indeed have that problem. And, with coming tariffs, we’ll probably have more of that problem.
But to be clear, across the entire state of New Hampshire since the beginning of 2024 until today, we’ve had 33 new construction homes built that listed between $400k and $499k. Only one of those new constructions were, by the way, in Dover.
So, let’s take on Joyal’s “You basically are creating more sprawl” attack against HB 459. Basically, the bill does two things:
For Lots Without Municipal Sewer Infrastructure:
Municipalities cannot require lot sizes larger than what the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services mandates for individual sewage disposal systems, unless empirical evidence demonstrates that larger sizes are necessary for community health and safety.
For Lots With Municipal or Community Sewer Infrastructure:
The bill prohibits municipalities from enforcing minimum lot sizes exceeding 22,000 square feet for single-family residential uses, provided there is adequate sewage system capacity.
Approximately half of Dover is zoned rural residential, which requires a minimum lot size of 40,000 square feet. As long as community sewer infrastructure is provided, HB459 would cut that square-foot requirement in half.
Joyal is likely using “sprawl” as a political buzzword to criticize the bill, even though HB 459 discourages sprawl and encourages compact development.
By definition, sprawl means expansion outward, while density means fitting more housing into a smaller footprint. And let’s be clear, New Hampshire already has sprawl. For years, restrictive zoning has forced development outward, scattering homes across acres of land while town centers remain underutilized.
When we first moved to Dover from the Midwest our landlord told us the best place to shop for groceries was the Somersworth Market Basket. I had a very difficult time figuring out where Dover ended and Somersworth began. Newington and Portsmouth? Man, for the longest time, I thought Fox Run Mall was Portsmouth. Back in Ohio there are clear delineations between towns. The distance between New Knoxville and St. Marys is about 7 miles of farmland. From St. Marys to Wapak, 14 miles of farmland. St. Marys to Celina, 7 miles of farmland and state park. The Seacoast area has never felt so much to me like a collection of small towns as much as a sprawling city with a collection of downtowns. Atlanta, Georgia much, New Hampshire?1
HB 459 aims to undo that pattern, allowing towns to build up instead of out—adding housing where people already live and work, rather than carving up more farmland or forest for million-dollar homes.
The bill encourages walkability and mixed-use growth. When housing density increases in the right areas, public transit becomes viable, local businesses thrive, and communities become less car-dependent. Instead of isolated subdivisions requiring long commutes to jobs and shopping, denser neighborhoods bring homes closer to grocery stores, cafés, and offices—creating vibrant, self-sustaining communities.
Joyal’s secondary main complaint about these bills is the possibility of increased residential taxes. Residential tax increases seem to be the norm in New Hampshire, and an issue I wrote about in regards to Rochester specifically at the end of January.
While property tax reassessments followed state law and market trends, and even though Rochester has lowered its tax rate and expanded exemptions for vulnerable groups, tensions remain. You can read the full report here:
I had a few Doverites call me personally and ask me how they could potentially fight their rising property taxes. I told them I could help them sell.
To be fair, it is not the fault of any one single municipality that your property taxes continue to rise year after year. Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about HB 283.
HB 283 proposed to drastically narrow New Hampshire's definition of an adequate education by eliminating subjects like personal finance, engineering, technology, computer science, civics, economics, history, world languages, and the arts. The good news is that after 30,000 protested the bill that would have stripped education down to reading, writing, and math, pushing students into a 19th-century model, was soundly defeated.
You can read my take on the bill here:
New Hampshire’s school funding system, by the way and if you didn’t know, is a disaster. The state provides $4,800 per student in “base adequacy aid,” while the real cost to educate a child is closer to $20,000. The burden falls almost entirely on local property taxpayers, forcing towns to raise property taxes just to keep their schools running. With more than 70% of school funding coming from local taxes, New Hampshire ranks dead last in the country for state contributions to education. The problem isn’t new—courts ruled in the 1997 Claremont v. Governor case that the state has a constitutional obligation to fund education fairly. Nearly three decades later, the system is just as broken as ever and instead of the state actually manning up with some cold hard cash we get proposed bills like HB 283.
This broken model has led to one of the most persistent myths in local politics: that new housing developments increase property taxes.
However, adding more housing spreads out the tax burden, allowing more people to contribute to the cost of schools rather than relying on a shrinking base of existing homeowners. The alternative—blocking housing—only makes things worse. When towns refuse to build, home prices skyrocket, tax assessments climb, and individual homeowners shoulder even more of the financial weight. The idea that more housing raises taxes is a fear tactic, one that distracts from the real issue: New Hampshire’s refusal to fund education properly.
If adding housing actually raised taxes, then towns with little to no new development should have the lowest tax rates. But in reality, many of these low-growth towns have some of the highest tax rates in the state.
A bubble chart mapping school spending against property values shows a clear trend: the towns that spend the most per student also have the highest property values.
The pattern is clear: it’s not housing that drives up property taxes; it’s a lack of state funding and an overreliance on local property taxes to fund education.
More homes—particularly more multi-family and mixed-use developments—would not only increase affordability but also help stabilize property tax rates. But instead of looking at the data, officials push a narrative of urban sprawl and financial strain, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Now, decades after the Claremont decision, new lawsuits like Rand v. NH and ConVal v. NH are once again challenging the state’s failure to meet its constitutional obligation. If successful, these lawsuits could force the state to finally contribute a fair share of education funding, reducing the need for towns to rely so heavily on property taxes. If that happens, the entire housing debate in Dover or any other New Hampshire community could shift. But until then, homeowners in Dover and across New Hampshire will continue to pay the price for a system that has been rigged against them for decades.
Joyal’s other tax concern deals with the potential of developers coming in and replacing traditionally zoned commercial properties with residential sectors.
Commercial properties do two things that residential properties don’t.
Commercial properties contribute tax revenue
Commercial properties need fewer services than residential.
Right now, for the past hour and a half writing this draft, city workers have been outside my house removing snowbanks. And let me tell you, thank god I pay for those services through my taxes!
The conventional wisdom is that if any town or city keeps growing its residential sector at the expense of commercial development, costs will rise faster than tax revenue, leading to budget shortfalls or tax hikes. With more residents come more schools, more police, more fire departments, more road maintenance, more public utilities, more cars, more people.
But, according to the January 28 Dover Download hosted by Chris Parker, Dover’s seen about maybe 1% growth.
Please see the note above about million-dollar-plus homes and the need for homes priced between $400k and $600k. You know, before I found them a home, one of my clients bathed from a bucket with water they heated on the kitchen stove because their landlord refused to fix the bathtub faucet. We don’t even necessarily need homes for people moving here from out of town, we need homes for people who live here now.
Except, you know, we’re at a median price point of $527,500. Boston? $739,121. New York City? $752,778. I know people from both places who moved here because of housing costs, but if the majority of our available homes are new construction and sitting on the market for extended periods of time, are those people the people who are buying into our community? Or are those out-of-staters the exception? Okay, to be fair, I moved here from Ohio, but I was a nomad before I arrived on New Hampshire shores, having lived in Iowa, Nebraska, Indiana, Wyoming.
The notion that “all our commercial space will vanish” is simply not true. Developers build based on demand, and if there’s still a market for office, retail, and service-oriented businesses, those uses will persist. Thriving commercial corridors won’t suddenly disappear just because more residential is now an option.
Essential businesses—grocery stores, coffee shops, medical offices, gyms, and restaurants—will continue to operate as long as they serve a viable customer base. The businesses most at risk are those that were already struggling—niche retail, big-box stores in declining shopping centers, and service providers that rely on office workers in areas where remote work has reduced foot traffic (can you say Liberty Mutual?).
Towns may not have the power to say “no” to development underneath these proposed bills, but they can say “yes” in smarter places. Overlay zoning can direct higher-density housing to areas near town centers, public transit, and existing infrastructure—rather than scattering homes into areas where roads, water, and emergency services are limited.
By incentivizing mixed-use developments, towns can ensure that new neighborhoods aren’t just seas of houses with no nearby stores, restaurants, or workplaces (can you say Dover Pointe or Waterfront?). A well-planned town allows people to live, work, and shop within walking distance—reducing traffic and enhancing community vibrancy.
Even if lot sizes shrink, towns can still preserve what makes them unique by expanding conservation districts.
Transfer of Development Rights (TDR), already a powerful tool in Dover’s planning arsenal, allows developers to build more densely in town centers in exchange for preserving farmland or open space elsewhere. Instead of paving over scenic landscapes, towns can maintain their rural character while still accommodating housing demand.
Towns still govern height limits, preventing oversized buildings from overwhelming smaller-lot areas. They can set minimum setbacks, ensuring houses aren’t packed uncomfortably close together.
Utility infrastructure remains another area where towns hold power—requiring developers to contribute to sewer and water systems so that taxpayers don’t bear the full burden of increased demand. Historic district protections can also be maintained, ensuring that new development doesn’t erase a town’s cultural and architectural heritage.
These proposed bills force towns to rethink their approach to development, but it doesn’t strip them of control. The towns that update their zoning regulations, implement impact fees, and plan for smart growth will create walkable, livable communities with balanced development. Those who fail to plan? They’ll be stuck dealing with traffic congestion, infrastructure overload, and haphazard sprawl.
These proposed bills probably won’t pass. New Hampshire fiercely protects local governance, and these bills, as written, may be a bridge too far. But that doesn’t mean we should dismiss the issues they attempt to solve.
Dover, to its credit, is ahead of the curve. It’s one of only 18 cities statewide recognized as a Housing Champion. It’s secured grant funding, explored zoning reforms, and put real effort into balancing growth with affordability. That’s more than most cities can say.
But being ahead of the pack isn’t the same as crossing the finish line. Dover still faces a housing shortage, and if prices keep climbing at this pace, even middle-income families will struggle to stay here. The market is speaking loud and clear—people want homes in that $400K-$600K range, and they simply don’t exist.
Look, I’m not one to put words in someone’s mouth, but this is what Joyal should have said:
For decades, we’ve used zoning laws to keep housing scarce, and now we’re paying the price. We don’t have a sprawl problem—we have a supply problem. Blocking new homes doesn’t stop growth; it just makes housing more expensive and forces people to commute from farther away. If we don’t change course, Dover won’t be a place where young families or working professionals can afford to live. The real risk isn’t losing control—it’s pricing out the very people who make this city thrive.
But instead of acknowledging how much work remains—or admitting that bad or outdated policies got us here in the first place—we got the usual fear-mongering about sprawl and taxes.
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
New Hampshire Rep. James Spillane has introduced a bill to allow rehabilitated raccoons and squirrels to be kept as pets if they cannot survive in the wild, aiming to prevent cases like New York's euthanization of Peanut the Squirrel. The bill would prohibit capturing wild animals or breeding them but would protect owners from having their pets seized without cause. Opponents, including the Humane Society and NH Fish and Game, argue that keeping wild animals as pets is dangerous, citing public health risks and the lack of approved vaccines for these species.
❝Opening ownership of these up to people who just want them because it’s a cool idea could end up having our shelters dealing with kangaroos and short tailed monkeys that people decide they can’t handle after a short while.”
~Rep. Peter Bixby, D-Dover
🦘 Ah yes, the classic slippery slope: one pet squirrel today, an entire Outback Safari tomorrow. Watch out, New Hampshire—next legislative session, we might be debating pet wombats.
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Check out the full Dover Public Library Instagram Post Here.
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