Nov. 28—HOOKSETT — The Nicholls family from Nashua planned to move into their freshly minted Colonial home around the time the two youngest members could start the school year at a new school.
But a delay in getting their custom cabinets thwarted those plans.
The Nicholls clan now plans to be settled in Hooksett by Christmas.
"There might be a Christmas tree up while we're moving stuff in," mom Laura Nicholls said during a visit to the family's nearly completed home.
This is a story of how one builder — along with his suppliers, real estate agents, subcontractors and the buyers themselves — grappled with creating an 18-house subdivision called Autumn Frost during the coronavirus pandemic.
Like many other places in America, for more than a year builders of new homes have faced delayed approvals, rising material prices and longer waits for items such as bathtubs and certain colors of siding.
"It's a domino effect," said Dave Scarpetti, a partner with his brother, Ken, at Sierra Realty, the exclusive marketing agent for Autumn Frost.
The dozen homes that have sold so far along Marigold Way have ranged in price from $507,000 to nearly $620,000 — far outpacing the state's median sales price of $380,000 in October.
"The prices are definitely inflated, but there is so much that drives it," builder Wayne Kenney said outside one of the homes under construction.
Building boom
Hooksett currently has at least five "major developments" of at least a half-dozen single-family homes under construction, according to Dana Pendergast, the town's code enforcement officer.
On Aug. 24, 2020, the town approved building permits for the first two Autumn Frost homes, according to town records. The first family moved in in February after spending the holidays living in a hotel waiting for their new house.
Other builders and subcontractors are experiencing many of the same delays in getting materials as Kenney. The builder of one new house in town can't get a certificate of occupancy until a delayed large window arrives to fill a "big hole in the wall," Pendergast said.
"It's a trickle-down effect," he said. "There's no window, which means the siding isn't finished."
Over the past decade, Hooksett's population has grown by more than 10%, to nearly 15,000 residents, more than twice the state's overall growth rate.
The Nicholls family's new neighbors include transplants from Tennessee, Utah, Kansas and Maine — most of whom are moving in for new jobs.
Last March, Jason Roberts and his wife, Becky, relocated from Maine to Marigold Way.
"We had an aggressive schedule, and Wayne (Kenney, the builder) made it happen," said Roberts, 45. "The delay was no more than two weeks."
The Robertses, who came to New Hampshire for employment purposes, spent two weeks in a hotel suite near Manchester-Boston Regional Airport until they could move in.
Roberts countered supply-chain hurdles with persistence in picking out appliances and lighting.
"I went to seven or eight different Lowe's and Home Depots in three states," he said in an interview on his front porch.
Heading into Thanksgiving week, the 18-lot subdivision spread over 23.5 acres included nine occupied homes. Three other families planned to move in by early December. One home was for sale, two others were under construction and three lots remained empty.
The uncertainty over pricing and completion meant lost buyers.
"Some people had to relocate, and we couldn't commit," Sierra Realty's Ken Scarpetti said.
Regulatory delays
The builder faced other hurdles beyond those caused by the pandemic.
The town started using updated building codes last March.
"There was a learning curve we all had to get adjusted to," Pendergast said, noting he and some builders had different interpretations of the codes.
He figures it cost Kenney a couple of weeks on some homes.
The town's code enforcement officer also departed, and Pendergast filled in one day a week while working for another town before he started full-time last winter.
"There was a slowdown for 2 1/2 or three months," said Town Planner Nicholas Williams.
The project also was delayed as several town departments discussed whether two of the planned houses on corner lots would have their driveways facing Summerfare Street or Marigold Way, according to Ken Scarpetti.
The subdivision also lost time because the builder didn't realize he needed to get approval from the state Attorney General's Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau, which must approve all new subdivisions larger than 15 lots, according to Scarpetti.
The builder "could have started the process sooner," he said.
The AG's office has 60 days to approve projects, longer if an application is found deficient.
The developer filed two applications for Marigold Way on Nov. 9, 2020. The AG's office issued letters of deficiency exactly a month later. The developer fixed the deficiencies in his application, and the AG's office approved the project on Jan. 6.
"It doesn't appear that any unusual or unexpected activity or delays occurred in the processing of these applications," Assistant Attorney General John Garrigan said in an email.
During the pandemic, the protection bureau also dealt with complaints about billing for day care and gym memberships as well as inquiries about utility shutoffs and evictions, Garrigan said in an interview.
"The resource strain on the bureau was pretty high, and remote work was necessary, but naturally that makes everything take longer than if we were all in the office," Garrigan said. "We did our best by abiding by the 60-day deadline."
Price spikes
Because of price increases for materials, home prices along Marigold Way have gradually risen by about $20 a square foot over the houses finished before the pandemic, Ken Scarpetti said.
That translates into around $50,000 for a 2,500-square-foot home. The subdivision's homes generally range from 2,000 to 2,600 square feet, he said.
"Fortunately, I've been able to go up on my prices as materials increased, labor's increased," said Kenney, the builder.
If prices go too high, the houses may not appraise for as much as people seek to borrow for a mortgage, said the Manchester-based builder.
Kenney's supplier of garage doors has raised prices by 10% five or six times this year.
"It's just continually going up," he said.
Lumber prices have "doubled if not tripled on me from when I started and have come down a little bit, but not where they should be," he said.
Despite the spike in material costs, Kenney said he has turned a profit on every house.
Supply delays have stretched the timetable for completing the homes.
"It's taken that much longer to build houses," Kenney said. "We try to allow myself four months to build a house. It's taken more like five, six months, waiting for materials, getting the subcontractors."
Along with higher prices for labor and materials, builders often face impact fees assessed by communities. Those expenses get added into the price of a new home.
Hooksett's impact rules call for a fee of $8,419 on every single-family home, to cover schools, public safety, roads and recreation, according to Williams. Water and sewer impact fees will push that figure thousands higher.
Dave Scarpetti said purchase and sales agreements no longer carry firm dates for closing or when a buyer takes possession.
"We give a rough idea, but we don't put it in writing," he said.
Backlog blues
At least a few New Hampshire builders have stopped issuing price quotes for new homes because orders for houses were backing up.
"That is having a giant pause on the whole industry because there is no price predictability," said Matt Mayberry, executive director of the New Hampshire Home Builders Association.
Builders are "seeing on a very tangible level" the backlog of cargo ships at U.S. ports unable to offload materials.
"And costs are going to go up," Mayberry said.
Some builders can't fill an order for an upscale stove, so they are substituting a cheaper version in order to get town approvals. But that has a cascade impact as well.
"When you take out a lower-priced stove, it denies someone who can't afford" something more expensive, Mayberry said.
On Marigold Way, items in short supply included hardwood flooring from the West Coast and conduits to protect underground utility lines, according to Ken Scarpetti.
"The darker blue siding is so popular now it was very difficult to get it. It's still pretty limited, but you can get the order filled, but you may get parts of it from three different warehouses," he said via text.
Softening market
Kenney said the housing market might be seeing a shift.
"It does seem like the market has softened a little bit," Kenney said.
"I'm still getting the activity, showing the houses, but people seem like they are taking their time more now," he said.
"I haven't had to lower my prices, which is good, but they are taking a bit longer to sell," Kenney said.
A few real estate agents interviewed recently said they weren't seeing as many bidders for the same property as during the summer.
Last month, Merrimack County, which includes Hooksett, saw 20% fewer homes sold compared to October 2020. The county's median price sat at $349,350, or 10.2% higher than a year ago.
Finally, moving in
Meanwhile, the Nichollses, who are currently renting in Nashua, are hoping to finally start moving in to their new Marigold Way home as soon as this week.
Last January, Laura Nicholls, 48, and her husband, Lance, 50, started looking seriously in the Nashua area at both new and existing homes for sale but found the prices too rich. They expanded their geographic search and gave up on existing houses.
"Because we can't outbid people, we're just going to build," Lance Nicholls said.
In March, the couple, now renting a home in Nashua, signed a purchase and sales agreement for Marigold Way.
They agreed to buy the 2,418-square-foot home on a hilly half-acre site for "just shy" of $600,000, Nicholls said, thinking they would move in sometime between August and October.
The builder secured the building permit for the house on May 11, one of five on that street approved within a week's span.
By mid-November, the cherry kitchen cabinets, delayed from Canada-based Cabico, had been installed, but some still awaited handles.
"I think it's looking great," said Laura Nicholls, a stay-at-home mother of five with three kids still living at home.
"We're super excited," said her husband, who works for a pharmaceutical company.
He's heard from people across the country he knows who solved the question of a delayed stove delivery.
"They would run to the dump, throw (an old) stove in, so they could get all the inspections on the house and they could close on their house and then when the real one shows up, they would go put it in," he said.
The day the Nichollses visited, the house across the way was getting its driveway black-topped. Another was getting flooring installed.
The cabinet delays came after the Cabico factory closed for a while, and "their orders exceeded their normal production" after they reopened, said Ken Scarpetti.
Cabico didn't return an email or phone messages.
The delayed move-in date proved beneficial for 18-year-old Colby Nicholls, who can now finish his senior year with friends at Nashua High School South.
"If we would've moved in earlier he may have gone to Pinkerton Academy," his father said via text message.
What's Working, a series exploring solutions for New Hampshire's workforce needs, is sponsored by the New Hampshire Solutions Journalism Lab at the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications and is funded by Eversource, the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the New Hampshire College & University Council, Northeast Delta Dental and the New Hampshire Coalition for Business and Education. Contact reporter Michael Cousineau at mcousineau@unionleader.com. To read stories in the series, visit unionleader.com/whatsworking.
