How do young adults afford Portsmouth rents? Meet 4 people who have done it. (2024)

PORTSMOUTH — On her Instagram story nearly two months ago, 26-year-old Portsmouth resident Rhianna Llewellyn posted a question for her followers to answer: For those living in Portsmouth, could they afford living in the city on their own?

After a number of responses, the social media app crunched the numbers: 92% of respondents said they could not make it on their own with Port City rental unit prices and overall cost of living. “The results are staggering,” Llewellynsaid.

With rental prices higher in Portsmouth than many other Seacoast communities,according to 2020 state data,many young professionals seek housing outside Portsmouth. Others, hoping to be closer to their jobs, eager toenjoy the city's cultural hub and partake in itsvibrant community,brave the competitive market to find an apartment.

A program manager for Amazon Robotics, Llewellyn is one of Portsmouth’s young renters who navigated surging prices, limited vacancies and high demand to find a living space in a desirable city for young professionals, families and retirees alike.

Her studio unit, a 750-square-foot space on State Street she and her boyfriend share, costs $1,900 a month, with hot water the only utility included in the cost. “Luckily I make a good living so I can afford what I choose to do,” she said.

Presently, however, she finds herself struggling alongside other young people hoping to stake their claim in Portsmouth’s rental market. Having outgrown their current space a few years after moving in, she and her boyfriend have been on the hunt for a new Portsmouth apartment for a year-and-a-half. In that time, they’ve gone to just four in-person showings due to high demand and the speed atwhich units are getting filled.

If all else fails, Llewellyn said, she’s perfectly content to sign back on at her current unit under a landlord she loves, though she understands the plight of young people hoping to live in Portsmouth and facing numerous market challenges.

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Finding housing in Portsmouth as a young individual is attainable, she said, though not without a potentially grueling search and a race to sign on. “It’s wild,” she said.

How are other young Portsmouth residents finding rental units in the city? For some, compromises were made, efforts were tireless, and a little bit of luck came into play.

'It's worth the extra' forthe lifestyle

Couch-surfing at friends’ places for a time helped Nick Johnson deepen his love for Portsmouth and eventually pinpoint a place of his own to rent.

His first apartment in the city, which he moved into in December 2019, was at the end of Woodbury Avenue next to White Heron Tea & Coffee. Sharing the space with two roommates, the oldest of the three eventually told Johnson and their other roommate that he was going to find a place for himself.

Wanting to stay in the area, Johnson, 25, and his other roommate decided to look for a new spot in Portsmouth, though their landlord only gave them 30 days to move out. “We had to look for another place(and) we were like, ‘We can find somewhere much cheaper and save some money… or we can stay in Portsmouth and spend a lot.’ And we were like, ‘It’s worth the extra.’”

They struggled, Johnson admitted, but “luckily” found a two-bedroom unit in Atlantic Heights they moved into in October last year. They had viewed a Middle Street rental in close proximity to downtown, but while the price was great, the unit held a college dormatmosphere they were looking to avoid. Other than that, Johnson said, they were met with “scam after scam after scam” inother listings.

“Atlantic Heights would be my recommendation really to anyone that is a bit at the younger age where you don’t make as much money,” he said. “If you’re trying to live in Portsmouth, Atlantic Heights just is a lot nicer and I feel like it is kind of its own little secret location in Portsmouth. Unless you’re a true Portsmouth person, you don’t really know the Heights.”

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Utilities are not included in the rent, which costs Johnson and his roommate $900 a month each. Along with their unit, they have a front yard patch, as well as a fenced-in backyard, a paved area with chairs and a barbecue, as well as a gardening spot.

Johnson doesn’t drink and called himself more “frugal” than most, which has “drastically” helped his budgeting. To afford to live in Portsmouth, he believes, most will need to examine their needs and be willing to compromise in order to make it work.

“I mean, you’re moving there because you really want to be in that environment, but it’s an environment that’s unlike any other I’ve found in New England. But you have to be willing to compromise,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to save as much as you usually are but you are going to have a lifestyle that’s making all your friends jealous and stuff, too. So, it’s a give and take.”

'The demand is there, so people can't afford to wait'

Formerly employed as a social media coordinator for an IT staffing agency, 23-year-old Bridget Keaveney knew she couldn’t live with her family and be able to fully focus on her remote work last year. So, when her at-home work allowed her to, she began looking for a spot to call her own.

“I was lucky enough to have a job that enabled me to have that freedom so I honestly made it my mission last summer to ... find a place,” she said.

Employing the help of her parents, landlords themselves, Keaveney spent her early summer days refreshing Craigslist, Trulia and Zillow pages searching through local listings. One day last July, striving to “challenge” herself and find a place where she could live alone for the first time in her life, Keaveney found a Columbia Circle studio costing $950 a month without utilities.

Complete with a washer and dryer unit, a “huge” kitchen, parking and a backyard, Keaveney later found out from her landlords she was the first person who contacted them about the space. “They said, ‘We have a good feeling about you, we want you to have this place,’” she recalled her landlords saying to her. “I just honestly lucked out.”

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Soon on her way to New York City for hernew job working for Vimeo, Keaveney said she’ll miss the safety she feels as awoman in Portsmouth in comparison to other locations, as well as the city’s walkability, great food, and its atmosphere full of young professionals such as herself.

Finding a rental housing option in Portsmouth as a twenty-something can be done, she said, if people are lucky enough to have easy access to rental websites in their average day.

“Be aware of the listings that are out there because they’re out there every day,” she said. “And don't underestimate Craigslist.”

Word of mouth also can make all the difference, as she said she hopes to pass down her apartment to a friend or acquaintance when she departs for the Big Apple in the next few months.

Typically someone who takes the time to thoroughly review a matter before a big decision, Keaveney said that she switched gears to act impulsively and sign on to her lease. It was only the second apartment she viewed in-person.

“The demand is there, so people can’t afford to wait,” she said.

'Portsmouth is a really happening place'

A young engineer for Underwood Engineers, Joe Towle, 23, decided to get his own place last winter after living with his parents for a time, hoping to be closer to his work.

“It's a place everyone wants to live but it's very, very difficult to find a good place,” he said of Portsmouth.

One Facebook group, called the “Seacoast Housing & Rental Site,” had exactly what he was looking for- a two bedroom unit on State Street at a modest $750 a month before utilities, which Towle said tacks on about another $80 per month. The apartment also contains one bathroom, an office space and a kitchen and living room area.

Towle messaged his now-roommate, a candidate for a doctorate in civil engineering at UNH, about the listing, signed on, and moved into the apartment in February.

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The cost of the apartment felt relatively cheap for Portsmouth prices, Towle observed, saying the listing felt like it could be a scam. “I really didn't think it’d be possible to live in Portsmouth with a reasonable rent, really.”

Scam or not, the demand for the listing was sky high, as Towle later learned from his roommate he had been selected from a pool of more than100 people who inquired about the listing in less than a week. With similar interest and a parallel academic background, Towle was the winning candidate from thecompetitive list of hopefuls.

“I was blessed with this,” he said, adding that though the apartment is not big, it serves its purpose as “home base” and is in the heartofdowntown. “Portsmouth is a really happening place with a lot of people, especially a lot of UNH grads who want to end up in the area.”

2020 data shows Portsmouth rental costs higher than most

Though 2021 state rental market statistics from the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority aren’t yet available, a recent report indicates both the homebuying and rental markets in the Granite State are blowing up.

The NHHFA’s spring “Housing Market Snapshot”reports headlines about the state's exploding housing market are not just hype.

“New Hampshire is a popular place to live and work, perhaps even more so since the pandemic opened up the possibility that many could work remotely effectively," the report states."Yet our housing inventory — both homes to buy and to rent— and housing affordability are seriously limiting the places that our state’s workforce will live, raise families, and retire.”

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NHHFA spokesperson Grace Lessner said the residential rental survey findings will be released in July with new numbers on average rental prices in Portsmouth and all communities in the state.

“When inventory is low for would-be homebuyers as well as renters, that generally indicates that people are not moving as much as they would if the rental market was more balanced,” she added.

2020 NHHFA data shows Portsmouth’s median rental unit costs are higher thanthe Rockingham County and New Hampshire average.

The median cost of a two bedroom rental in Portsmouth last year, in a sample size of 230 units, was $1,761 a month. For comparison, Rockingham County, which held the highest median cost of a two bedroom rental out of New Hampshire’s 10 counties, reported its two bedroom rental median cost was $1,623.

One of five select cities highlighted in the study, Portsmouth came in at the highest median two bedroom rental price, with Nashua coming in second and trailing by $49 a month.

At the statewide level, the median rent for a two bedroom unit in 2020 totaled $1,413- $348 less than Portsmouth’s median rental.

In the first quarter of 2021, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics found that United States workers between the ages of 20 and 24 were bringing in a median earnings total of $628 a week, over $250 less than it would take to pay for half of the city's median two bedroom rental rate.

'You're not going to get everything'

Llewellyn said as she and her boyfriend continue their new apartment search, they have started marketing their appeal to landlords to try to gain an edge. That includes showing off photos of their friendly corgi, Frank, and discussing her boyfriend’s military experience.

Even so, they’re running into obstacles and competing with bids made by their friends. “We’re not the homecoming king and queen of Portsmouth, but we’re in competition with people we know,” she said.

Like other young people who have gotten housing in Portsmouth, Llewellyn is relying on housing-oriented websites like Zillow, Trulia and HotPads for up-to-date listings, as well as Craigslist, which she says is a place renters can find the diamond in the rough.

As her search wears on, though, she’s experiencing the hardships of searching for an apartment in a place people are flocking to. And in Portsmouth, every renter’s wish list item won’t likely be satisfied.

“You’re not going to get everything,” she said. “You’re just not.”