Peg Daneau wanted to come home.
After years living in North Carolina, Daneau and her husband missed the beauty and the quiet of New Hampshire. They had roots in the Concord area, and wanted to find a peaceful place to finish their careers and retire.
They weren’t sure where to settle down. But on a trip to visit friends in Boscawen in 2017, they saw a line of brand-new homes being constructed on Corn Hill Road.
One, in particular, stuck out – a tan one-story home with a nice front yard.
“I could see us living there,” Daneau said, of the first time she saw her home. “It just seemed like the perfect fit.”
The homes are part of a surge of development that’s been happening on old farmland on Corn Hill and Knowlton roads and Water Street in the past five years. Almost 30 homes have been built in that area, town officials say.
Builders say part of the draw is the availability and the cost of land in Boscawen – the average cost for a land sale in Concord over the last nine years was around $84,000, according to the New Hampshire Association of Realtors. In Boscawen the average parcel was sold for $37,000.
Many of the buildings being constructed – like the one Daneau saw – are ranch-style homes. The style is popular with baby boomers looking to downsize and young professionals looking to build affordable first homes, developers say.
“Concord is running out of buildable, affordable land and we’re the next line,” said Alan Hardy, Boscawen’s town administrator. “We’re the next wave.”
Daneau, 55, who has lived in her new home for eight months now, said she likes one-story living, the country lifestyle that’s an easy commute from the city, and the close-knit community of the town.
She said she’s fallen in love with Old Home Day and other small town traditions in Boscawen. Plus, she’s seen some of the best sunsets of her life from her new porch, she said.
“Concord is great, but this is the heart of New Hampshire to me,” Daneau, looking out at the view of the trees behind her house. “It’s small, and it’s still a community.”
Concord, Bow and Hopkinton have seen the most land sales and development during the last decade in the capital region. Hopkinton recorded 67 land sales to Concord,’s 66. Bow came in a little lower, registering 53 land sales since 2009.
In addition, real estate prices in those communities remain high. To the north of Concord – where undeveloped land is abundant and populations are low, developers see opportunity. Boscawen, for example, has one-tenth the population as Concord but saw two-thirds as many land sales (43) during the last decade, with a spike of 11 sales in 2017 alone.
Wearing a sweatshirt and camouflaged work pants the day before Thanksgiving, developer Mark York was working on a blue one-story house for a family that was about to in. His company, York Building & Remodeling, has built seven out of about 30 homes in the area of the former Knowlton farmland.
He said he’s been attracted to Boscawen for the prices, which can be a quarter of the price of a piece of land in Concord.
“Anywhere South of here, it’s hard to get land,” he said, drinking a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee and leaning against a trailer in the home’s driveway. “I think a lot of people are moving this way, getting away from the city. It’s a little bit more affordable.”
A lot of the building in Boscawen has also been driven by need. In the 1980s and ’90s, during the housing boom, people built multi-story four and five bedroom homes, said Matt Monahan, senior planner at the Central New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission. Many of those homes were in places like Concord or Bow.
Now, people can’t afford those homes – especially younger professionals and those around retirement age, an increasing demographic in New Hampshire.
“Overall, the demographics are changing, and that’s driving the market – people are looking for smaller housing,” Monahan said.
That desire for smaller, affordable housing was something Concord realtor Maleeka Lloyd saw when she was working on One Riverside Place, a newly constructed 38-unit condominium community in Boscawen off East Street.
“It was a lot of younger people – some older – who wanted a nice, new place at an affordable cost,” Lloyd said.
Lloyd, who has worked on projects in Hopkinton, Bow and Concord, said the condominiums were one of her first projects in Boscawen. She said she marketed the condos as having a close commute to Concord for shopping and dining, but far enough away to enjoy the river, woods and scenery.
“One Riverside Place is designed for those who enjoy the convenience of being close to the city, but appreciate the beauty of living in a woodland community,” the website for One Riverside Place reads. “Homes in this area’s growing community combine the best of both worlds.”
They were also marketed toward first-time home buyers – renting out at about $1,700 a month, she said.
Lloyd said the condominiums, finished last year, went faster than even she imagined, and the building company, Cityside Management Corp., is planning to build 18 more before spring.
The town saw similar success with six duplexes in the area behind Ross Express trucking company on North Main Street that was completed on by Red Oak Property Management. Those were sold just weeks after going on the market.
The houses on the Knowlton farmland are no different. People drive by, see houses going up, and want to know more.
“People are calling all the time to find out about them,” Boscawen Planning and Community Development Director Kellee Jo Easler said.
Officials are counting on new tax dollars coming in with all the new development.
Hardy pointed to one home, at 50 Corn Hill Road, that brought in $121 in taxes as a bare piece of land in 2016. As a developed lot with a house on it in 2018, it brings in over $7,000 in new taxes.
In the five years since the last town-wide assessment, new properties, in combination with rising value for preexisting homes, has raised the Boscawen’s valuation by around $48 million, Hardy said.
Even the prices of the land on Knowlton, Water and Corn Hill roads is increasing. Just a few years ago, a lot of raw land, just under an acre in size, would sell for about $25,000. Now, lots of similar size are going for $40,000 to $45,000.
“Two or three years ago, we would not have seen those kinds of prices,” Hardy said. “It’s really market-driven.”
Even the sizes of the houses are getting bigger, and the prices are going up.
“Before we were building those 1,200 – 1,400 sq. ft. ranches, now we’re seeing bigger houses,” Hardy said. “It’s what people can afford.”
The reputation of rural towns like Boscawen are improving, Hardy said. People used to move away from the area for better school districts, like in Bow and Hopkinton. But now, people want to move to the town – not away from it.
Hardy and Easler said they hear people raving about Boscawen Elementary School, the town’s only public school. Merrimack Valley Middle and High Schools are in Penacook.
“You have the river, it’s gorgeous, which is right out of Boscawen, you have the Walker Pond area all out through the farms, our town forest, the walking trails,” Easler said. “Plus, we’re right off Exit 17. It’s a nice place for people to come with young families. It’s just beautiful.”
Daneau said she has seen development done “the wrong way.”
She and her husband moved to Boscawen from Wakeforest, N.C., where the population has doubled in the last 10 years because of all the commercial and housing growth.
“Just shoving stuff in, and overloading roads and things like that,” Daneau said. “I know the consequences.”
Daneau said that’s not what she’s seeing in Boscawen. There’s no clear cutting, or mass building. People are coming into Boscawen because they like that it’s rural, and they don’t want that to change.
“I understand open space and all that and how people might be upset by it, but it’s bringing people into their way of life that may not have had it before,” Daneau said. “It’s New Hampshire and everything I know and love about it.”
Editors note: This story has been edited to show that the condominiums at One Riverside Place were rented for $1,700 a month, not sold for $215,000.