The only law needed is that of supply and demand. If the demand is greater than the supply, the price increases. Portsmouth is a small city with likely less than 13k dwellings available. The number of people that want to move here, either for work or just because it’s an amazing area, far exceeds its ability to house everyone. There has been a fair number of units added over the past couple of years, but land and building costs are very high. If it costs a developer $50m to create 50 units, you can trust those units are not selling for less than $1m each and if they decide to rent them, you can’t expect a $1m property to rent for $1500 a month - which doesn’t help get those people that want to move here but can’t afford to. There has been a few developments for workplace housing and smaller units, but it doesn’t begin to cover the number of people that want to live in Portsmouth. I’d love an ocean front property (or even a Little Harbor one), but I don’t have one because I can’t afford it. I don’t hate the system because someone else is doing better or their family has more money. Nor do I make threats about burning things to the ground because I think the system is broken. I do what I can to make my situation better and live within my means. I had a long commute for years, because that’s what I had to do. I wasn’t entitled to a downtown Boston property just because I worked there as much as I wanted one at the time.

I never understood this point of view…I worked in Boston for 10 years and not once did I have a Boston zip code. I would have loved to live closer to work, but I couldn’t afford it. It wasn’t the fault of the people that lived there that I couldn’t live where I wanted to.

I think it depends on what you do. I would say the vast majority of the people living in Portsmouth that still work are working locally or from home (remotely). There’s a lot of business in Portsmouth compared to a fairly small population, so realistically not everyone that works here could live here…there just isn’t enough space.