New Hampshire economic development officials may want to emblazon the state’s motto, “Live Free or Die,” on a welcome mat for Massachusetts business owners to see.
The Granite State’s neighbor to the south has long been seen as less business-friendly, but new challenges loom for developers there, including the threat of a ballot measure authorizing rent control.
Experts who spoke at Bisnow‘s New Hampshire State of the Market event said New Hampshire is seeing more business and capital flooding in as developers seek affordability, lower taxes and a transparent development environment.
“Entrepreneurship follows the path of least resistance, and that is New Hampshire, right?” R.J. Kelly CEO Brandon Kelly said at the Bisnow event, held Feb. 12 at his company’s industrial and office space at 121 Technology Drive in Durham.
Kelly said New Hampshire is becoming more enticing for investors, especially in the southern part of the state. The area is well located in the Greater Boston radius without any of the hurdles developers face in suburban Massachusetts towns.
Kelly’s business still runs out of Burlington. He said Massachusetts’ regulatory challenges are making it increasingly difficult to do business in the state.
Such anecdotal sentiments can be hard to verify, but the Associated Industries of Massachusetts Business Confidence Index dropped 1.7 points in December, 8.6 points lower than it was a year before, the Boston Business Journal reported. The drop reflected growing pessimism among Massachusetts business leaders, with the leading worry being the cost of doing business.
In contrast, there is a feeling that New Hampshire’s government is seeking to clear hurdles to lower that cost, Chinburg Properties CEO Eric Chinburg said.
“The government is generally pro-business, generally stable and generally low taxes, and they’re open for business, and so that’s all good,” Chinburg said.
R.J. Kelly purchased the Technology Drive site in 2021 for $21M. At the time, it was home to a 500K SF office and manufacturing building. The developer began an adaptive reuse project on the site, which is now home to the University of New Hampshire’s John Olson Advanced Manufacturing Center.
Kelly said the lack of institutional capital in New Hampshire created an attractive basis for the project. Institutional capital creates a tight market that makes it hard for some projects to pencil or creates pressure to change projects away from what the company wanted for the space.
“I think everybody probably would have had a different business plan for this building, but because there was not a ton of pressure, that pushed up our basis,” Kelly said.
Another major driver for New Hampshire’s business optimism has been the state’s growth trajectory over the last couple of years and its proximity to Massachusetts, panelists said.
Bisnow/Joshua Piquion
Smith Horizon’s Kevin Smith, R.J. Kelly’s Brandon Kelly, Walker & Dunlop’s Travis D’Amato, Chinburg Properties’ Eric Chinburg, Rockland Trust’s Peter Rayno and Colliers’ Bob Rohrer
New Hampshire has heavily relied on migration historically, with its population growing 7.5% over the past 15 years, according to the Census Bureau. It is estimated that more than 4,000 residents moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire in 2024 alone.
New Hampshire can often piggyback on what Massachusetts has built without necessarily incurring the same costs as its neighbor, Colliers Managing Director Bob Rohrer said.
“The infrastructure is there. Utilities, gas, water, access to highways, access — in a perverse way — to Boston and the labor markets in northern Mass.,” Rohrer said. “We still do rely on that.”
New Hampshire’s multifamily sector has been building to meet the needs of these new residents. Roughly 4,000 multifamily units were delivered in New Hampshire in 2025, up 60% from the prior year, according to Colliers.
However, the market maintained strong occupancy rates, at 93.8%. On the investment side, the state was home to nearly $1.4B in multifamily sales, down from its peak in 2024 of nearly $2.6B.
Some 77% of those who moved into the state from 2018 through 2022 were of working age, according to an analysis of census data by the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute. The cost of living in New Hampshire is making it somehwat easy for young professionals to choose to live in the state, Walker & Dunlop Managing Director Travis D’Amato said.
“Most of it is relatively affordable,” D’Amato said. “If you’re attracting college graduates to a really good job where they don’t have income tax and they can afford a place to live, that’s really, really attractive and rare.”
