![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2011\/10\/IMG_0009.jpg\" "\\"Jane")
<\/a>Amanda Loder \/ StateImpact New Hampshire<\/p>
Retiree Jane Harrington loves her new home in New Hampshire, which offers some small town amenities and easy access to Lake Winnipesaukee<\/p><\/div>\n
In her own way, Jane Harrington’s been a godsend for Moultonborough<\/a>.\u00a0 We’re walking along a stretch of lakefront properties when Harrington takes a deep breath and proclaims, \u201cSo we\u2019re looking at Winnipesaukee here.\u00a0 You can hear it.\u00a0 It\u2019s an absolute Zen moment!\u00a0 If there\u2019s a reason to move to New Hampshire, this is it!\u201d<\/p>\n Harrington\u2019s a 66-year-old retired school teacher from Boston.\u00a0 About 10 years ago, she and her husband bought a second home in the woods within easy walking distance of Lake Winnipesaukee.\u00a0 Although they started using it on weekends as a vacation home, Harrington says the endgame was always retirement. \u201cOur location to me is perfect,” she says.\u00a0“My husband wanted wilderness, and I wanted the feel of wilderness.\u00a0 So he can feel he\u2019s in the wilderness, but I know I\u2019m just a few miles from a supermarket, a restaurant, and a movie theater!\u201d<\/p>\n Then she lets loose with a long, good-humored laugh.\u00a0 It’s the sound of someone who’s relaxed, comfortable, and happy with her new home.<\/p>\n The town of Moultonborough, where Harrington lives, has more second homes than any other town in the state.\u00a0 According to the US Census Bureau<\/a>, more than half the houses here\u2014about 3,000\u2014are seasonal homes.\u00a0 Many of them are owned by out-of-state Baby Boomers with money to spend.\u00a0 Pretty much everyone\u2019s happy with this situation.\u00a0 For a few months a year, people from outside New Hampshire pump a bunch of money into the town, pay taxes for schools their kids don\u2019t use, and then they leave.\u00a0 In terms of funding town services, for places like Moultonborough, it\u2019s a good deal.<\/p>\n \u201cThe real question is how are these homes going to be occupied ten years from now?\u00a0 Are they going to continue to be vacation homes, or are they going to become, in effect, retirement homes?\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s Russ Thibeault, the president of Applied Economic Research.\u00a0 He studies New Hampshire\u2019s real estate markets and economic issues, and raises questions like this, \u201cIf they become retirement homes, is there going to be a greater burden put on particularly social services and health care in the state, than we\u2019re accustomed to?\u201d<\/p>\n One thing\u2019s for sure, communities like Moultonborough don\u2019t offer a lot of services.\u00a0 After all, only about 4,000 people live there all year.\u00a0 They just don\u2019t need a lot.\u00a0 That might change.\u00a0 But since Baby Boomers are just starting to retire, we don\u2019t have a lot of concrete data right now on how many actually are turning their vacation houses into full-time retirement homes.\u00a0 Anecdotally, Jane Harrington says she sees a demographic shift happening in her town.\u00a0 She says she’s been meeting women who’ve owned vacation homes nearby for a few decades and have recently made the decision to live in town full-time.\u00a0 “I think the floodgates are to open very shortly,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Peter Francese is a demographic forecaster for the New England Economic Partnership.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cBelknap County, Carroll County\u2026and\u2026Grafton County\u2026 show extremely high growth in the 65 and older [demographic]. And coincidentally, they have very high percentages of dwellings that are second homes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot like the fact that the consumption of ice cream and the commission of violent crime goes up together, precisely together. The two of them are obviously not related. Ice cream and crime are not related, except that they\u2019re both related to temperature. It\u2019s the same phenomenon here. The attraction of Belknap, Carroll, and Grafton Counties is they\u2019re beautiful places to live. And in the case of Grafton County, it also has\u2026very excellent medical care facilities\u2026So they\u2019re attractive to retirees for those two reasons. But the beautiful landscape makes them attractive for second homeowners. In other words, there\u2019s this third factor that allows both of those to rise together.\u201d<\/p>\n You can see county-by-county demographic tables created by Francese with Census 2010 data here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/div>\n In a recent community survey, Moultonborough\u2019s seniors gave low ratings to the services catering to them.\u00a0 That\u2019s suggestive of the forces working on the town.\u00a0 “But I think no one really knows what Baby Boomers want to have for their community well enough to say how they\u2019re going to respond,\u201d Steve Norton says.\u00a0 He’s director of the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s really who\u2019s going to be driving these local decisions,” Norton says, “the Baby Boomers who are close to retirement or in retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n Right now, a lot of Norton\u2019s research is focused on how the state is aging.\u00a0 But, he notes, not only do we not know the services these seniors will want\u2014even if they do move here year-round\u2014we don\u2019t know how long they\u2019ll stay.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandmother hated this place.\u00a0 Oh, she hated shoveling snow, she hated not being able to get where she wanted to go, for six months out of the year.\u00a0 But she only started to hate it after she turned 70.\u00a0 So we\u2019re beginning to look at the migratory patterns of those over the age of 70.\u201d<\/p>\n Norton notes that vacation communities are just one example of a demographic change the whole state faces.\u00a0 Right now, Baby Boomers account for one-out-of-three state residents.\u00a0 As they age, Norton says a \u201csilver tsunami\u201d will wash over communities in different ways.\u00a0 It\u2019s unclear what this will mean in the long term for individual towns like Moultonborough.\u00a0 But for a state that\u2019s historically lean on government services, it\u2019s not too far-fetched to think that as the supply of seniors goes up\u2014so will the demand for services.<\/p>\n (You can check out other stories from StateImpact’s vacation home series here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n One out of ten houses in New Hampshire is a seasonal home; the homeowners pay taxes, just like everyone else, while demanding only a handful of services.\u00a0 But that could change if aging owners decide to retire here, turning their vacation homes into year-round residences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":2332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[175,536,507,154],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2323"}],"version-history":[{"count":79,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2460,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323\/revisions\/2460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Floodgates Opening?<\/h3>\n
Demographer Peter Francese: An Alternative Perspective<\/strong><\/h5>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nBut Are The Boomers Here To Stay?<\/h3>\n
Moultonborough Demographic Changes 2000-2010<\/h4>\n
\n\n
\n Year<\/td>\n Population 45-65<\/td>\n Percent<\/td>\n Total Population<\/td>\n Median Age<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 2000<\/td>\n 1,462<\/td>\n 32.6<\/td>\n 4,484<\/td>\n 46.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 2010<\/td>\n 1,526<\/td>\n 37.7<\/td>\n 4,044<\/td>\n 50.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 2000-10 Change<\/td>\n 4.38%<\/td>\n <\/td>\n 9.81%<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"