Moving to the Seacoast
Towns, prices, taxes, commutes - and what living here is actually like, from someone who sells houses here and lives here too.
Hi - I'm Sabrina. I'm a REALTOR at Red Post Realty in Portsmouth, I live in the city's West End with my husband, and I co-founded this site with him because we kept answering the same question for friends, clients, and total strangers on the internet: "What's it actually like to live on the Seacoast?" For us the answer is walking to coffee past three businesses that didn't exist two years ago - this isn't a territory I cover, it's home.
Here's what I tell every client who calls from out of state: this is a small, tight coastline - nine towns in about a 20-minute radius - and each one has a genuinely different personality. You are not choosing "the Seacoast." You're choosing Portsmouth-walkable, or Dover-practical, or Rye-quiet, or York-beachy. Get the town right and everything else falls into place.
This guide is the long version of that phone call. The numbers in it are real - home values pulled from Zillow's home value index and tax rates from official town and state sources, all researched in July 2026 and footnoted where they appear - and the opinions are mine.
What living here is like, season by season
Summer
The payoff season. Beach days at Wallis Sands and Long Sands, boats in Portsmouth Harbor, outdoor dining everywhere, and a festival or farmers market every weekend. The trade-off: Route 1A crawls, Hampton Beach is packed, and restaurant waits get real. Locals learn the back roads and go early.
Fall
Honestly the best-kept secret. The crowds leave, the water stays swimmable into September, the foliage shows up, and apple orchards and harvest fairs take over the calendar. If you visit before you buy, visit in October - if you love it then, you'll love it year-round.
Winter
Real winter - snow, wind off the water, and short days. But the Seacoast doesn't hibernate: Portsmouth restaurants and theaters run all year, and the ski hills of the White Mountains are about 90 minutes north. Budget for plowing, and ask about heating systems when you tour homes. It matters here.
Spring
Mud season is real and it's fine. April is quiet and gray; by mid-May the whole coast wakes up at once. Spring is also when the housing market sprints - most of the year's inventory lists between March and June, so buyers who are ready early get the best shots.
Commute realities
Boston: about an hour from Portsmouth to downtown outside of rush hour - closer to 90 minutes at peak. Plenty of people do it a few days a week; very few love doing it five. The C&J bus from Portsmouth and Dover to South Station and Logan is the sanity-saver, and Amtrak's Downeaster runs from Dover, Durham, and Exeter into North Station.
Portland: also about an hour up I-95, which is why Kittery and York work so well for people with one foot in Maine. The traffic is lighter than the Boston side, tolls aside.
Working local: the Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth is the Seacoast's biggest job hub - hundreds of companies from biotech to aerospace on the old air base, minutes from anywhere in this guide. Add the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery and the hospitals in Dover and Portsmouth, and plenty of residents never get on I-95 at all.
The New Hampshire tax picture
New Hampshire has no state income tax on wages and no sales tax. That's the headline that brings a lot of my clients here, and it's real. The trade-off is that towns fund schools and services almost entirely through property taxes, which run higher than the national norm and vary a lot from town to town - Portsmouth and Rye are on the low end, Dover and Newmarket on the higher end.
Two wrinkles worth knowing: if you live in NH but your employer is in Maine, Maine taxes the income you earn there. And the Kittery and York side of the river comes with Maine income tax but noticeably gentler property tax rates. I break all of this down, with the actual 2025 rates for every town, in the home prices & taxes guide.
Go deeper
Which town is right for you?
All 9 towns compared - the vibe, the price of entry, and who each one actually fits.
Read the guide → The numbersHome prices & property taxes
Median sale prices town by town, what $500K to $1M buys, and why tax rates differ so much.
Read the guide → BuyingThe Seacoast buying guide
NH vs Maine, flood zones, wells and septic, and how to win a house when inventory is thin.
Read the guide → SellingThe Seacoast selling guide
When to list, what relocation buyers want, and the cheap fixes that actually pay off.
Read the guide →
About the author
Sabrina Saulnier is a licensed REALTOR at Red Post Realty in Portsmouth, a Seacoast local, and co-founder of Seacoast Local Loop. She wrote every guide in this hub and reviews the numbers regularly.
Ask Sabrina about moving here. She answers herself.
Buying, selling, or just wondering what your town is really like - ask away. No pressure, no drip campaign.
