New Hampshire is the nation's most livable state, the second healthiest state, among the top five safest states and high on the list of states committed to education, so it's no surprise the state just keeps getting better.

Well, except when it comes to what could be an over heated housing market.

The nation's "Most Improved State" award was the latest bestowed upon New England's New Hampshire by Morgan Quitno Press , a Lawrence, KS-based publishing company that specializes in analyzing data to compare states and cities in a variety of subject areas.

"Sometimes life just isn't fair for states other than New Hampshire," said Scott Morgan, Morgan Quitno Press president.

"New Hampshire won our Most Livable State Award earlier this year and has performed well in nearly all of Morgan Quitno's surveys. Yet there is no arguing that New Hampshire is the clear winner of this year's Most Improved State Award," he added.

The Granite State proved as solid as a rock scoring well in a host of quality-of-life factors used to measure the state, including those related to employment, health care finance, higher education, social welfare and federal, state and local government finance.

The factors are somewhat different than those considered in Morgan's first "Most Improved State" competition last year when California came out as the Golden State of Improvement. Because of the difference in the factors used last year, the two years aren't comparable, but during that competition New Hampshire tied for third with Maryland.

This year, the East Coast generally fared well in the test. California, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida, Nevada and Delaware rounded out the Top 10 most improved states.

Conversely, a host of western states at the bottom of the heap -- Alaska, Wyoming, Nebraska, Oregon, Idaho, North Carolina, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota and Utah took the Bottom Ten spots where, apparently, the status quo ruled.

In Morgan's other surveys, New Hampshire was No. 1 as the "2005 Most Livable State" for the second year in a row; No. 2 in the "2005 Most Healthiest State" study; No. 4 among safest states in the "2005 Most Dangerous/Safest State" report and No. 26 in the "2004-2005 Smartest State" survey.

Like a growing number of the nation's top, hot and popular housing markets, however, New Hampshire is in the geographic middle of what many consider a housing bubble. Too much pressure from ever-higher prices could cause the bubble to pop and prices to fall.

In the past year, the state has been No. 12 in the list of states with the fastest growing home prices, with home prices growing by more than 12 percent. In the past five years, only Rhode Island has a faster growing rate of appreciation (97.57 percent) than according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversite's first quarter 2005 report.

Local economists are predicting a price-correction period starting in late 2006 that could result in a 5 percent to 25 percent drop in home prices.

Among them, New Hampshire economist Russell Thibeault of Applied Economic Research in Laconia says the last five months of home sales in New Hampshire indicate price appreciation has stalled and the coming decline could last for five years.

That's because the market can't sustain continued rapid price appreciation and there's a growing disparity between home prices and rents, making rents a more affordable housing option.

However, economists say, even a 20 percent correction in prices in the high-flying market would only bring prices back to where they were a year and a half ago. That follows historic patterns that reveal market corrections have never produced price dips as deep as the previous boom was wide.

Buyers who are forced to sell, say because of a divorce, job loss or transfer that occurs at the onset of the bust, just as or after the market peaks, stand a greater chance of losing money on a home than those who buy at the peak and can stay put until the market rebounds.

The fundamentals apply in every hot market.