New Hampshire Lakes Market Still Strong

I've just returned from a conference in Bretton Woods, NH, and there's no sign of a slowdown in the Granite State. "Second homes in the Lakes Region have been in high demand no matter what the economic climate has been. Even when prices started to fall off as a result of some of the bank disasters in the past, people were waiting in the wings to buy," Mel Borrin, a consultant with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, told a local paper. Especially strong: the areas around Lake Winnipesaukee, Squam Lake and Lake Winnisquam. The only time the Lakes Region's second home market has softened, he said, is when interest rates climbed to 17 to 18 percent.