I have visited several times also visited your northern neighbor Maine (once for a work (not fun) camping trip and several times for the hell of it).

So far everything I have seen and experienced makes me want to move.

I have been told stay north of the Hooksett toll booth for a place to live lol.

Have been around Manchester, Sunapee, North Conway, Portsmouth, between Nashua and Keene.

Good, bad and ugly please about what ever aspects you care to share information about.

Schools? Any private ones worth a crap?

Pitfalls to avoid for new residents?

Things to keep in mind?

Employment? (I am currently a estimator for a GC)

A house would probably have to be no more than an hours drive from Bedford or Hampton areas.

I have a few people I know who live in NH and have their input but want to see what the crew here has to say.

Talk you out of it.  OK.  Pre coffee incoherent ramble.

Lots of bugs.  We're talking more than in LA or NC.  I don't think we have any poisonous bugs though.  Bring your pemethrin and deet.

People will gatekeep for the state if they have been here for 37 seconds.  Unless they are lib shitbirds and then they are welcoming.

Blood runs in the street due to our lack of gun laws.  Example, constitutional carry, can carry in bars, display of a firearm in and of itself is not considered brandishing, etc.  Fish cops still have their say and you can't have a loaded(as defined as round in chamber) long gun in your vehicle, but you can have an AR pistol.  Dangerous place.

The registration for my truck last year was in the $700s.  We have annual inspections as well.  The state DOT and the car dealers are in cahoots to rust out your vehicle, fail it on inspections, and force you to buy new.  Their are plenty of ways to mitigate salt damage though.

The no sales tax thing is legit, but the king gets his cut elsewhere.  See the registration fees, see property tax which wildly swings from town to town, buy a jug of oil at Walmart and see a rando 7 cent oil fee pop up.

No income tax is legit.  There is an interest and dividend tax that is being phased out-goes away in 27.  With my wildly inefficient portfolio, I paid $452 last year.

There are good incentives property tax wise to keep parcels greater than 10 acres undeveloped.  See current use.  Essentially have at least a 12 acre parcel, take 2 acres out of current use for your house/outbuildings, and keep those 10 acres in current use therefore paying pennies in property tax.  I paid $43 dollars for almost 40 acres this year.  I'm in the process of taking about 2 acres out of current use, will pay a small penalty for that, and my bill will obviously go up when the house is built.

There is a slight, but generous, property tax benefit for veterans.  More so depending on other factors.  The states sets the min benefit and towns votes on what they actually want to apply on top of it.  Some towns are dirt poor, so you know how that goes.

It's hard to find public land to shoot on unless you're willing to put in work for research.  The laws are pretty clear and protects the shooter.  Me, I just shoot on my land like my neighbors do.  Not many public ranges-lots of clubs.

It's a purple ish state with regards to voting.  Lots of conservative/libertarian stuff locally and the donkey show gang goes to DC.  Every two years every seat in NH is up for reelection.  We have 400 state reps covering 221 towns along with 25 unincorporated places and your rep could literally be the dude that wrenches part time at the gas station.  They aren't professional politicians and it shows in both a positive and negative way.  You occasionally get some wackadoos who slip in.  The governor just signed a bill which adds scrutiny to same day voter registration-the libs are furious, but it is a good bill.

Don't expect your town to hold your hand with regards to services and expect services to vary wildly from town to town.  Example trash in the town I live in is $5 a year and open five days a week.  Town I'm moving to I have to buy fancy trash bags and they are only open 1.5 days a week.

Every town is wildly different with regards to their administration-town I'm moving to has not published BoS minutes since March.  Town I'm in emails them out within 5 days IAW state law.  BoS is the town's governing body here and most yearly town matters are settled in an annual town meeting.  Don't be apathetic-be involved and informed with what happens in your town.  Go to town meetings and school board meetings-your property tax and other matters depend on it.  It also helps if you are at least passivly involved in social media-every downvote of a tard post on r/newhamsphire helps the cause.

With reference to above, the state's mantra is local control-let the towns handle stuff versus the one size fits some statewide approach.  There is state preemption on firearms laws though, so the lib towns struggle to(essentially can't) outlaw firearm use.

Some sections of the state see a lot of out of state second home ownership.  Think Lakes Region and North Conway area.  Think lots of MA, NY, RI, CT, and NJ plates.  This is sometimes reflected in lower tax, but the town's tax rate is only one part of the equation.  Think higher assessed value and higher price to enter.

Summer traffic in parts of the Lakes Region can be a bitch-Meredith is the worst.  Right now Laconia is wrapping up bike week.  I think only three fatalities so far this year-two caused by drunks in cars.

Large areas of the state, to include populated areas, have no broadband or no cell service-sometimes both.  I live in a populated Lakes Region town-zero bars on the cell but OK broadband.  I'm building an hour north of here and I have OK cell service, but no broadband.  Depending on which way I drive up there I can pass through many towns with neither.  Some of the cell issues are NIMBY related-the town of Haverhill/Woodsville held up a cell tower for a year or so due to the looks of the tower and whether it violated their town's ordinances.  Tower still isn't built.  Similar, but less delays in Holderness-tower still isn't built.

The housing market is a bit frazzled right now.  Vacant land less so.  I chose to keep my blood pressure low, rent a place from a distance, find a nice chunk of buildable land to buy in an area I liked/had the time to research, and am having a place built.  I'll end up paying more total than if I had bought a vacant place, but I didn't have the patience for the home buying knife fight.  Since you're related to the industry you'll know their is a lot of thought that goes into determining whether a vacant lot is buildable.  

There are two VA hospital systems which cover the state.  Manchester and White River Junction.  I haven't had any real issues with Manchester, but once I move I'll hop over to the WRJ network.

Most sub specialty health care in the state is in the south with the exception of DHMC in Lebanon.

As far as areas-I don't like the south of the state with a slight exception towards the slightly loony SW.  After research I drew a line at concord and Littleton and said I wanted to rent a place in between there-it worked out perfectly and I'm living by Squam Lake('On Golden Pond').  I'm building slightly north of Littleton.  So i can't help you with Bedford/Hampton.  I find the SE/Seacoast area soulless.

Schools/employment can't help you.  I don't know what a GC estimator does, but I'm sure their is something around in the larger construction companies.  Expect wages to possibly lower here than where you're at or in MA.  Don't fall into the pitfall of living in NH and working in MA as you'll pay MA income tax.

There is an attitude from folks outside of the state that everyone here is an asshole.  Completely the opposite.  Expect to have people wave or stop if they see you on the side of the road stuck in a ditch.  Someone saw me with my hood up at the Littleton Lowes and walked across the parking lot and asked if I needed a hand.  Expect folks to mind their own business and they'll expect you to do the same.

People bitch about the cold, but it helps keep the riff raff out.  The usual suspects think we're a racist state due to demographics, but I haven't seen it.

The southern/SE part of the state sees mild winters.  North of say Tilton you're almost guaranteed snow cover in the yard from early December through March.  There is occasional flooding in the SW.  Mud season is a thing here when then ground thaws.  Keep that in mind if you live on a dirt road.  Dirt roads are common in NH as paving costs the town money.  There were several roads in the town of Campton that were essentially impassible to anything but OHRVs early this year.  

If I think of something else, I'll add it in.  My coffee kicked in and I just heard one of my conibears pop.

ETA:  Heating can be expensive-wood stoves are the way.

ETA2:  if you like Sigs, the Sig store has a legit mil/leo discount program on firearms.  Similar for students of Sig classes.

So yeah-don't come.  You'll hate it.  Just kidding, you'll likely love it-come on up.  

Thanks for the candid info.

Wood pellet stove is what one of my buddies has. Seems like a good stove but I would still have a backup one that could handle regular wood.

Sig pro shop is a stop when I head up that way.  

The tax variance between localities is something I was also told before to look into before purchasing land or a home.

Been to the Londonderry club range as a guest, nice facility. But I would rather focus on land so I can do my own thing.

Where should I look in the state code to find details on the tax breaks for keeping land over 10 acres undeveloped?

How’s the Pittsburg area? If I can’t convince my better half to move now while we are still working, I might buy some land and be a absentee owner for a few years.

Some sites which display the tax variance.  

https://joeshimkus.com/NH-Tax-Rates-2021.aspx

https://www.revenue.nh.gov/mun-prop/municipal/property-tax-rates.htm

A the tax records are on the town's website in a couple different formats.  You can see how the assessed values stack up against the tax rate.

The two common versions of sites.  
GIS:  https://www.axisgis.com/whitefieldnh/
Analog:  https://townofdalton.com/municipal-departments/town-clerk-tax-collector/dalton-nh-town-tax-maps/ and then https://data.avitarassociates.com/default.ASPX

These two towns are next to each other so I would suspect they are assessed the same or similar.

For a different region so you can see the assessed value difference:  https://www.axisgis.com/holdernessnh/

Here is an example tax card of someone with 115 acres 1 of those acres was taken out of current use to put a single wide on.  If you click the review property tax, you can see their yearly property tax is $1582 for that parcel and it's improvements-not bad for 115 acres and a "house".  Only gave you partial snips to protect the name, but you can get a TON of info off of each town's page.





Current use:

See the RSAs under information
https://www.revenue.nh.gov/current-use/index.htm

https://www.revenue.nh.gov/current-use/documents/cub-2020-2021-current-use-handbook.pdf

Some information about veteran's tax credits.  See the form at the bottom for the various extra credits.  https://www.holderness-nh.gov/assessor/pages/veterans-tax-credit-application-information

I'm not going to do a pellet stove until I am too old to manage wood.  Pellet stoves are nice as they are cleaner and the temperature is easier to manage.  Look on hearth.com, r/woodstoving, r/woodstoves, and r/firewood

No clue on Pittsburgh-furthest north I've been is Lancaster.  Just like with anywhere else, you have to look at your proximity to the hubs where you receive health care, groceries, and essentials.  Up north, that is Littleton and to a MUCH lesser extend Gorham-in reality folks on that side are better served going all the way to North Conway.  There are grocery stores as you go north.  Shaws in Lancaster, IGA in Colebrook, and random mom and pop stores etc.  

Thanks!

I just found the revenue website just prior to comping back to this thread. Lots of reading to do.

Yeah, I did a lot of nerding out on current use and towns varying assessing when i was hunting for land.

ETA:  Weather does occasionally get weird.  https://www.necn.com/news/national-international/winter-weather-has-returned-snow-expected-on-mt-washington-this-weekend/2762439/

I agree with in general keeping north of Concord, but there are exceptions to the rule. In my opinion the further north is better. I live in the southern edge of the White Mountains, and commute to Laconia for work. We have a cabin in Clarksville and plan to retire there. In general the taxes are better in the less "citified" areas.
Clarksville/Pittsburg is great as far as I am concerned. A long haul to the big box stores, roughly 2 hours one way. But lots of Mom n Pop stores that are pretty competitive with them price wise, especially lumber/hardware.
Plenty of activities too, ATVS, snow mobile, hiking, hunting, fishing, boating. Or just enjoying the piece and quiet.
Our place in Clarksville we have 34 acres with an off grid 18x24 1- 1/2 story log cabin, full basement and a huge porch, plus a 12x16 1-1/2 story bunkhouse. Taxes are about $1300 a year, without using current use.
Regularly see deer, moose, and bear right in the yard.
Most everyone up here is of a a similar mindset, live and let live, but always willing to help out a neighbor if they can.
If there is any specific questions you have, I can try to answer them.

Good point about how far is far enough from certain things.

Thanks!

I moved from MA to NH about 1 1/2 years ago.
The only regret was not doing it sooner and not buying more land. But hopefully someday will will buy more land further north as a getaway.

We’re in to SE part of the state near 101.
25 minutes from Bedford, 40 minutes to Hampton and 20 minutes from Sig Academy.

Very quiet town, few amenities directly in town but there’s quick access to Hooksett, Manchester and Epping for all the big box stores. Taxes are low for southern NH.
My area is of very conservative / Libertarian mindset with a live and let live attitude and every time something happens around town it seems that is the same for most.

Lots of gun clubs around, I hear gunfire almost daily from surrounding properties. There are opportunities to buy land but not as easily available or as cheap as it will be further north.

School system is great from what we hear, (my daughters is just about 1 so we’re not actively involved yet) and a few towns around go to Pinkerton Academy.

Plenty of skiing and snowboarding within an hours drive, snowmobile trails go throughout the state. Hunting and fishing is great.

If your able to get a decent amount of land you should look into the tax break for allowing access for use.

FDC gave some solid advice to consider.
Taxes can change significantly from one town to another so watch that.

Good luck with your decision.

Some other things that might be a consideration for you.

- NH only has one real trauma center and that is Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Any serious medical issue/accidents, the other hospitals try to stabilize you and then chopper you to Boston (or DMHC if closer). I'm in the Nashua area and our medical experience so far has not impressed me here.

- A good friend/former FFL/former co-worker retired to Sunapee NH and as he tells it: 45 minutes to grocery shopping, 45 minutes in a different direction to restaurants, and 45 minutes in a third direction to a movie theater.

- I've learned to estimate travel by minutes/hours, not miles if I am going East/West of home. It takes me ~20 minutes to travel 5 miles in my town due to all the traffic lights and town-wide 30 mph (and yes, they run radar and ticket) speed-limit. Unless you are traveling on one of the Interstates or Rte. 3, travel is slow up here. A fair number of towns in my area have town-wide 30 mph speed-limits.

- RE taxes and house prices are much higher nearer the MA border than far North in NH.

- I find the people here much friendlier than where we came from in MA (SE of Boston) and local/state politicians are much more approachable as "real people". My Wife and I are members at Londonderry F&G and over the past few years we've had candidates for US Senate and Congress as well as a candidate for governor come to our meetings and make their pitch to the membership. [In >40 years as a member of 4 MA gun clubs, not once did we ever have any statewide or federal candidates speak at a meeting.]

Thanks for all the info thus far.

Good to know about the hospital info. Something to definitely think about.

That's one of the reasons I like the place I'm building at.  Take a right out of the driveway and it is 10 miles(aprox 15 minutes) to the big box store area of Littleton.  Take a left, and I'm maybe 10 minutes from the resteraunt areas downtown and exit 41 to get on 93.

Where I'm at now, it is a 7 mile, but 15-20 minute slog to Plymouth.  I could take the shorter trip to Meredith for Hannafords, but I hate that Hannafords, Hannafords is expensive anyways, and the 3/25 intersection blows.

When I was in my 20s, location and quality of hospitals wasn't a consideration. After both of us have had back surgeries and a couple of really bad hospital experiences in a community hospital, plus being over 65 now, it was a major consideration when we were house-shopping in NH.

Yes very true.

I wonder if there are any good air ambulance services?

DHART is the one.  Them and the NG, but the NG is mainly for evacs and rescues.  

As FDC stated, DHart is the one used in NH. However, I'd never want to see the bill for that "taxi" service!!

I wonder what insurance would cover.  lol.  I hope to never experience that.

BTW Len, if you haven't already done so, i recommend cancelling your MA voter registration.  I hadn't lived in MA for almost 30 years and hadn't voted in MA for over 10 years.  I was still on the rolls and started to get texts and phone calls spamming me about MA stuff.  Simple emailed letter to the town clerk in the town i grew up in seemed to work.  I contacted them for specifics before i sent as I bet each town has their own requirement.

I was an appointed town official in my MA town and all the town officials knew that we had moved when I submitted my letter of resignation. In spite of that we received all sorts of SnailMail advising us to vote/request ballots/etc. in MA. My MA town clerk advised me to have my Wife and I write letters to him requesting to be removed from the MA voter rolls. We did that.

Earlier this month our Londonderry F&G meeting had a candidate for Congress and governor speak and a club member mentioned "how it is supposed to work" automatically between states when you register in a new state. Somehow it doesn't seem to work the way she told me!!

My guess is that your average Citizen has no clue about "un-registering".

Yeah.  Some states were easy to get off of their rolls.  Alaska, I just emailed them.

At least now when I go to the MA sec state page my name doesn't come up as a voter.

Certainly nothing automated about it and I bet 80% of movers do not un register.

Fun thing about my letter is I didn't even give them my current address.  I gave them the address that I used when I registered in another state years ago.


Speaking of voting, I'm waiting to see how the new affidavit ballot law will hold up in court.  It's a good bill, could create a hassle for town clerks after an election, but still a good bill.  

https://newhampshirebulletin.com/briefs/sununu-signs-affidavit-ballot-bill-into-law/

Another good indicator of how good the bill is is the volume of the screeching from the usual suspects.

DHART, Boston and Life flight out of Maine med are all used regularly in the seacoast area with the majority being DHART and Life flight. If the event is serious enough or a prolonged extrication they'll land a med flight right on the highway or nearby LZ. There's also Maine Med for specialty care.

COVID took a giant shit on every aspect of the healthcare industry. NH currently has more openings in the FIRE/EMS field than candidates to fill them. Many depts are seeing this and unable to fill open positions.

Portsmouth Regional Hospital (seacoast area) is level 2 and working on getting their level 1 adult trauma, if they don't already have it. They also have aggressive stroke and STEMI (heart attack) teams.

For med flights there's Boston, DHART and Maine med which keeps a med flight on standby in Sanford. There are no "dibs" on who gets what calls where or response areas. Generally they try and send the closest available helicopter but you could have a med flight from Boston take you to Maine med or DHMC (or any combination thereof) it depends on location, what's available for helicopters and the most important factor is the weather. If the weather is shitty (and that's often the biggest factor) nobody is flying and you're going by ground transfer.  

Basically if you have a serious medical issue/injury (that doesn't warrant a med flight on scene) you're going to the nearest hospital unless there's a better/more appropriate facility within reasonable transport time. If you live in the sticks the facilities are a lot smaller and can handle less. They'll typically do what they can to stabilize your condition and then ship you to a higher care facility. Same goes for services such as LE/FIRE/EMS. Smaller town equals typically less services and experience than you'd get with a larger town/city that usually have paid staff.  
As an example a few years ago I had a relative who lives in a small town experiencing a STEMI (active heart attack). The ambulance (2 paid FF/EMT during the week) bypassed a couple less capable hospitals to get them to a much higher care facility and their outcome was good. Transport time was double what it would have been to the closest facility but they didn't have the capabilities to treat them appropriately.  

@machinegunseabee come on up, we need all the conservatives we can get to keep this state from becoming northern Mass.
@FDC did a great job providing a ton of useful information here. Those posts should be tacked to the top of the forum IMO.
@LenS

Good info

I am trying to set the wheels in motion for land ownership… I shall see how that goes.

The family and I recently moved from TN to central NH, near New London.

The only unexpected negative we found is the difficulty in getting general/preventative medical and dental care.  We have let to find a primary care physician who is accepting new patients.  The 1st dental appointment for the recommended local dentist is July 2023.  Local Vets are similarly not accepting new patients.

You’re in NH, you don’t need teeth anymore.

I kid, we’ve had the same issues. We were able to find a local vet for our two dogs but it was about 6 months before we could get them in.

When our daughter was born last July we got her in a pediatric office who also has a branch for adults. They will take us as patients because of our daughter is already in the system.

Our dermatologist is still in MA and I was only able to get in because I married into a family of long term patients.

The rice rabies turned the healthcare industry into a tail spin. Lots of people left the industry and NH saw a huge influx of out of staters moving here from urban areas. So you have a large increase in demand with a system less capable to accommodate it and it's not going to get better any time soon. Traveling nurses getting paid a shit ton more money than local full time nurses/techs/DRs and so on is another major issue. There's zero incentive for local providers to come work extra when travelers are getting 2-3+ times what they're getting paid. This is a problem nation wide, not just here.

At least NH didn't go full retard like Maine did last fall and pull the licenses of all emergency healthcare providers that aren't vaccinated, EMS/RN/DR.
Governor/mills/news/mills-administration-requires-health-care-workers-be-fully-vaccinated-against-covid-19-october
"The organizations to which this requirement applies must ensure that each employee is vaccinated, with this requirement being enforced as a condition of the facilities’ licensure."

NH saw some provider influx from that, though minimal.

These are just a few examples of the shit show that is the healthcare industry.


ETA I also confirmed that Portsmouth regional is a level 2 trauma center (trauma surgeon/team on standby 24/7) which isn't much different than level 1 (same as level 2 but a "teaching" facility)  and med flights have been transporting trauma patients to them in fact I heard that Boston turned away a trauma flight the other day and they diverted to Portsmouth.

I also forgot to mention that DHMC keeps 1 of their helicopters on standby in Manchghanistan

I was using that way back in 94 when I was in college dating a girl from Manch-Vegas   over der on da west side. You know da houses side by each eh.


I should have trade marked that LOL

Odd with the PCM as you're ideally situated to link into DHMC.

As far as the dentist, you should have moved to Liuttleton.  I think they have a quota that there are two dental clinics per block.  I'm exaggerating, but only a little bit---tons of dentists there.

Winters! Hope you like very long winters!

Don't mind winter.

Definitely gonna have to research docs and other medical stuff before I decide on a geographic area to look.

Was just told about LL Cote in Errol. Sounds like a one off version of Buc-ees of the North East. Gonna have to check that place out.

Getting a MA non resident carry permit is something I will definitely go for. Don't want to end up screwed over for going thru the wrong part of a parking lot.

If you end up anywhere near Londonderry NH, I can teach you the course to get the MA NR LTC at Londonderry F&G Club.

Can people who don't live in a border state to MA obtain one? I currently live in VA.

Yes, they don't care where you live or where you take the course, as long as your money order clears, you present a valid MSP training certificate (Not an NRA one) and you show up for your interview in Chelsea MA (only once/6 years, each other year it is done by Mail).

Sweet.

I may have to hit you up if the timing works out the next time I am up there.

Just don't go to Mass unless you absolutely need to. Problem solved

and that's where I am at

I go to the Cape twice a year to visit my parents on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The only money I may spend in the state is for a Christmas night hotel stay as our Christmas is a two day affair typically.

Even though I am exempt from their training due to having a post 98 MA LTC A, the $100 a year and the initial trip to wherever to get figerprinted isn't worth it to me.

The less money I send that shithole of a state, the better.

I still have to go back to MA occasionally. All our doctors are at BWH in Boston and I need to keep my NR LTC to keep up my LEOSA qualification and MSP certification to give BFS certificates and certify other MA retirees for LEOSA.

Hopefully the latest SC ruling makes them loosen up severely but I'm very skeptical.

Rightfully so