{"id":3425,"date":"2011-11-22T12:35:52","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T17:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=3425"},"modified":"2013-07-30T21:51:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-31T01:51:25","slug":"how-much-do-vacation-homes-contribute-to-nhs-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2011\/11\/22\/how-much-do-vacation-homes-contribute-to-nhs-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Do Vacation Homes Contribute To NH’s Economy?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Crosby_Allison \/ Flickr<\/p>

For a small state, New Hampshire's got a lot of wide, open spaces, be they near lakes, mountains, or fields. And according to one report, that's very, very good for the second home economy.<\/p><\/div>\n

If you tuned-in to NHPR’s “The Exchange<\/a>” yesterday morning, you might have heard economist Russ Thibeault talking about an interesting (and these days, somewhat obscure) report.\u00a0 We’ll get to that in a minute.\u00a0 But first, a bit of background.<\/p>\n

Yesterday’s program was based on StateImpact’s reporting, which focused on the economic impact of New Hampshire’s vacation homes<\/a>.\u00a0 And as we’ve noted in previous coverage, that’s a nebulous number to track down.\u00a0 For one thing, the Division of Travel and Tourism<\/a> doesn’t keep track of second homeowners.\u00a0 Meanwhile, although you can get a decent count of seasonal homes based on Census<\/a> data, it’s harder to tell how many of those homes have been converted to full-time residences, and vice-versa.\u00a0 And, as noted at last week’s New England Economic Forecast conference<\/a>, it’s hard to pin-down solid retail data, because New Hampshire doesn’t have a sales tax.\u00a0 New Hampshire businesses aren’t reporting their sales in the same, detailed way that retailers are in most other states.\u00a0 So it’s tough to look at towns with high concentrations of vacation homes and drill down to how much money those homeowners are pumping into the local economy.<\/p>\n

The economists we spoke with over the summer by and large said they didn’t know of any studies done on the economic impact of vacation homes in the state.\u00a0 They agreed it could be done, but it’d be tough.\u00a0 And we found the same thing.\u00a0 But economist Russ Thibeault did manage to track down an old report focused on vacation homes vis-a-vis the preservation of the state’s open spaces.*\u00a0 And he was kind enough to give this paper to StateImpact following “The Exchange.”<\/p>\n

Here’s what Thibeault found:\u00a0 In 1999, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests<\/a> released a study called “The Economic Impact of Open Space in New Hampshire<\/a>.”\u00a0 Using data from 1996-97, researchers found the following information about the state’s second home economy:<\/p>\n