Merrimack (NH) Investor Pulse Report (2025-Q4)

Landlords in Merrimack County, NH, currently hold a substantial portfolio of 8,225 SFR properties, representing 20.3% of the total SFR market of 40,504 properties.

Individual investors overwhelmingly dominate the landlord landscape, owning 7,340 (89.2%) of all investor-owned SFR properties, compared to companies holding only 1,351 (16.4%) properties. This pattern is consistent when looking at entities, with 11,115 (89.4%) individual landlords versus 1,316 (10.6%) company landlords.

The investor-owned portfolio is highly focused on rentals, with 8,153 properties (99.1% of landlord-owned SFR) identified as rented. This indicates a strong rental-centric strategy among landlords in Merrimack County, NH.

A majority of these landlord-owned properties, 4,656, are held outright as cash purchases, surpassing the 3,569 properties that are financed. This suggests a preference for unencumbered assets or a strong capital base among investors.

Company portfolios tend to utilize less cash, with a higher proportion of their assets potentially being financed, although specific split data by owner type is not provided for financed vs cash directly in this section.

In Q4 2025, landlords in Merrimack County, NH, demonstrated a significant pricing advantage, acquiring properties for an average of $503,907. This represents an 8.8% discount, or $48,763 less, than the average price paid by traditional homeowners, which stood at $552,670.

The landlord pricing strategy, however, has been highly inconsistent throughout 2025. While Q4 saw a notable discount, Q3 2025 showed landlords paying a $18,013 (3.5%) premium at $539,221 compared to homeowners at $521,208.

Further demonstrating this volatility, Q2 2025 saw a modest $10,198 (1.9%) discount for landlords, while Q1 2025 registered a substantial $45,091 (9.9%) premium, with landlords paying $502,381 against homeowner prices of $457,290.

The average acquisition price for landlords has fluctuated significantly in 2025, with prices ranging from $502,381 in Q1 to $539,221 in Q3, demonstrating no clear upward or downward trend across the year for their average buy-in cost.

Landlord acquisition prices in Merrimack County, NH, reached their peak in Q3 2025 at $539,221, followed by Q2 at $531,391, suggesting a mid-year peak in market valuation for investor purchases.

Landlords in Merrimack County, NH, were exceptionally active in Q4 2025, securing 271 SFR properties. This accounted for a significant 72.1% of the total 376 SFR purchases in the quarter, indicating a highly landlord-driven market.

The Q4 purchasing activity was almost exclusively driven by mom-and-pop landlords (Tiers 01-04), who purchased 273 properties, representing an overwhelming 99.6% of all landlord acquisitions. This highlights the foundational role of smaller investors in the local market.

Single-property landlords (Tier 01) were the primary drivers of this activity, acquiring 262 properties, which is 95.6% of all landlord purchases in Q4. These purchases were made by 437 entities, suggesting a broad base of new or expanding small investors.

Institutional investors (Tier 09, 1000+ properties) showed no purchasing activity in Merrimack County during Q4 2025, consistent with their negligible presence in overall ownership.

The remaining landlord purchases were distributed among slightly larger mom-and-pop tiers: two-property landlords (Tier 02) bought 4 properties (1.5%), small landlords (Tier 03-05) acquired 5 properties (1.8%), and landlords with 6-10 properties (Tier 04) added 2 properties (0.7%).

Merrimack County, NH, presents a unique market structure where mom-and-pop landlords (Tiers 01-04) collectively control an overwhelming 99.8% of all investor-owned SFR properties. This signifies an almost complete absence of large-scale corporate or institutional investment.

The backbone of this landlord-owned housing market is the single-property landlord (Tier 01), who owns a remarkable 7,725 properties, accounting for 92.4% of the entire investor-owned portfolio.

Further breaking down the mom-and-pop dominance, two-property landlords (Tier 02) hold 341 properties (4.1%), landlords with 3-5 properties (Tier 03) control 229 properties (2.7%), and those with 6-10 properties (Tier 04) own 54 properties (0.6%).

Larger investor tiers, specifically small-medium landlords (Tiers 05-08), represent a minuscule fraction of the market, with Tiers 05 (11-20 properties) owning just 10 properties (0.1%) and Tier 06 (21-50 properties) holding only 4 properties (0.0%).

Critically, institutional investors (Tier 09, 1000+ properties) have no presence in Merrimack County, owning 0.0% of investor-owned SFR, completely challenging narratives of institutional market takeover in this region.

The provided data does not include acquisition price variations by tier (section 8-2), precluding insights into whether larger or smaller investors pay different average prices for their holdings.

In Merrimack County, NH, the landscape of investor ownership shifts from predominantly individual to majority company-owned as portfolio sizes increase, with the crossover point occurring between 5 and 6 properties.

Individual investors overwhelmingly dominate smaller portfolios: they account for 7,015 properties (86.4%) in the single-property (Tier 01) segment and 244 properties (69.9%) in the two-property (Tier 02) segment.

Companies begin to gain significant ground in the 3-5 property tier, where they own 102 properties, representing 42.5% of that tier, while individuals hold 138 properties (57.5%).

The definitive crossover happens in the 6-10 property tier (Tier 04), where company ownership overtakes individual ownership, controlling 34 properties (63.0%) compared to 20 properties (37.0%) held by individuals.

This pattern indicates that while individuals are the primary force behind single-unit and small-scale investing, companies play a more prominent role in developing larger, albeit still mid-sized for this county, portfolios.

Unfortunately, the provided data does not offer insights into how individual versus company acquisition prices differ within each tier, thus preventing an analysis of their respective buying strategies based on price.

Merrimack County, NH, exhibits highly concentrated investor activity, most notably in Zip Code 03231, which astonishingly registers a 100.0% investor ownership rate, indicating a market entirely composed of investment properties.

By raw count of investor-owned properties, Zip Code 03257 leads the county with 1,046 properties, where investors hold a substantial 55.3% of the SFR market. This demonstrates a significant concentration of landlord portfolios within this specific area.

Following closely in terms of investor-owned property count are Zip Code 03255 with 788 properties (53.5% investor rate) and Zip Code 03221 with 687 properties (50.6% investor rate), reinforcing a pattern of localized investor concentration across Merrimack County.

The correlation between high property counts and high ownership percentages is evident, as the leading zip codes by count (03257, 03255, 03221) all show investor ownership rates exceeding 50%, highlighting strong market penetration in these sub-geographies.

Other areas, like Zip Code 03235, contribute significantly to the overall count with 455 investor-owned properties, though its investor ownership rate is lower at 20.3%, suggesting a broader distribution of properties within that area despite still high numbers.

Landlords in Merrimack County, NH, are robust net buyers, demonstrating a highly acquisitive market stance. In Q4 2025 alone, they purchased 450 properties while selling only 27, resulting in an impressive buy-to-sell ratio of 16.67x.

This trend of strong net buying has been consistent across the entire year, with landlords acquiring a total of 1,763 properties in 2025 against 113 sales, yielding a 15.60x buy-to-sell ratio for the year. This suggests a sustained strategy of portfolio expansion.

Quarter-over-quarter, landlords have maintained a significant net positive acquisition pace: Q3 saw 592 buys vs. 40 sells (net 552), and Q2 recorded 413 buys vs. 28 sells (net 385), reinforcing a clear and uninterrupted accumulation pattern.

Compared to 2024, the pace of acquisitions has increased, with 1,763 buys in 2025 outstripping the 1,423 buys in 2024. Similarly, sales volume increased from 96 in 2024 to 113 in 2025, but buys grew at a faster rate, further solidifying landlords' net buyer status.

Institutional investors (1000+ tier) registered zero buy or sell transactions across all recorded timeframes in Merrimack County, NH, indicating a complete lack of large-scale corporate transactional activity in this market, aligning with their zero ownership share.

In Q4 2025, landlords in Merrimack County, NH, were central to the housing market, participating in 450 transactions, which constituted a substantial 70.4% of the total 639 SFR transactions in the quarter.

This transactional activity was almost entirely concentrated within mom-and-pop landlord tiers, with 449 transactions attributed to Tiers 01-04, primarily driven by single-property landlords (Tier 01) who executed 438 transactions.

A notable trend in average purchase prices emerged across tiers: single-property landlords (Tier 01) paid the highest average price at $509,967. In contrast, larger mom-and-pop landlords (Tier 06-10) secured properties at a significantly lower average of $199,933, demonstrating a potential pricing advantage for slightly larger portfolios or different acquisition strategies.

Inter-landlord trading was minimal in Q4 2025; only 33 (7.5%) of single-property landlord transactions involved properties bought from other landlords, with other tiers showing no such activity. This suggests that most landlord acquisitions are from non-landlord sellers.

Consistent with their overall market absence, institutional investors (Tier 09, 1000+ properties) recorded zero transactions in Q4 2025, further emphasizing the mom-and-pop-driven nature of Merrimack County's real estate investor market.