Real estate market report for Maine.
Maine housing sales are up 28%, just like the Maine real estate prices that hiked the very same percentage amount.
Here’s the Maine Association Of REALTORS press release on the real estate market behavior statewide.
AUGUSTA (June 22, 2021)—Sales of single-family existing homes in Maine
continue a double-digit increase trend. Statistics released today by the Maine
Association of Realtors show 1,1613 homes changed hands across the state in May
2021—a 28.32 percent increase over May 2020. High buyer demand continues to
impact home values.
The statewide median sales price (MSP) increased 28.21
percent to $305,000 in May 2021 compared to May 2020. The MSP indicates
that half of the homes were sold for more and half sold for less.
“May 2020 was the low point for Maine’s residential real estate market due to the
COVID shutdown,” says Aaron Bolster, Broker/Owner of Allied Realty in
Skowhegan and 2021 President of the Maine Association of Realtors.
“Since then, the numbers have rebounded and continue to show strength. These
reported numbers reflect a comparison to the May 2020 COVID shutdown
statistics. May 2021 sales volume was comparable to pre-pandemic sales volume
levels, about one percent above the May 2019 figures.”
According to the National Association of Realtors, single-family existing home
sales across the country rose 39.2 percent in May 2021 compared to May 2020.
The national MSP of $356,600 represents a 24.4 percent increase from May of
2020. Regionally, sales across the Northeast increased 46.9 percent and the
regional MSP increased 17.1 percent to $384,300, compared to May 2020.
“We continue to see swift market conditions with most transactions navigating
multiple offers,” added Bolster.
“Statewide, the Days on Market for May 2021 was six days, compared to 17 days a year ago, and 20 days in 2019. The month of May brought additional for-sales homes onto the market, with active single-family listings up 21 percent at month’s end. Additional for-sale supply will help meet
this pent-up demand.”
Thank you Aaron. See you at the state of Maine REALTOR convention whenever that happens again.
Maine is a big state with a handful of cities, a slew of small scattered rural areas. Sizing up the health of the Maine real estate market is like ordering a cow for supper. What slice of beef were you thinking you wanted slid on your plate? How exactly do you want it served up and cooked to your liking?
Let’s face it, everyone was already busy and COVID just cranked it up several levels.
So how’s the Maine real estate market question. Not everyone wants a sentence or two to explain where we are and how things are shaking down statewide. The part of Maine a buyer or seller is swimming in and the type of real estate that is the topic of discussion. There are several Maine real estate markets within the market and nuances the mass media never covers. A snazzy cute headline and a sentence or two does not do many topics justice.
The Maine real estate market gloss over hitting the highlights often does a poor job explaining what is happening in less new covered areas of the state.
Those are the best kept secret spots to seek out and discover because they don’t get the national or often statewide attention. Too far to north, east, west to visit often or at all. Off the beaten path to snap an image, roll the video for the journalistic piece covering a story interview because too little advertising opportunities to fund the news coverage expense overhead.
So small town rural Maine real estate market today, how’s that segment of the listing sales doing today?
In small rural Maine real estate markets, lots of owner financing of land happens. Folks in large crowded population centers in urban areas want a cheap vacation land acreage for camping. Low cost vacations with their travel trailer that leads to a small Amish building or something stick built being added to the Maine land acreage.
Another segment of the small town rural Maine real estate market is DIY homes.
Something where cash is used, not a bank mortgage to purchase it. And the place is used as a vacation destination with the four or five buyers slowly dealing with the many items in the property job jar. They might fix and flip or hang on to keep it. The owners all have a collective skill set to bring life back into the weary structure that just needs TLC and a little love in all the right places.
Small town rural Maine real estate markets involve Mom and Pop business opportunities. Buy a corner convenience store, not all of them are owned by a chain. Small rural Maine towns offer investment opportunities the average Joe and Jane could not find in more populated, higher cost of living areas outside of Maine.
People move to Maine for a higher quality of life.
To get away from the strangulation of debt, the traffic, crime, just all the sea of faces in the crowded impersonal city landscape. Maine is common sense living, kids being raised with jobs to learn how to manage money early on. Not making tragic mistakes later in life from never having earned their own money to manage. The entire village raises the kids from cradle to graduation in small Maine towns.
Front open porches are used, folks volunteer and work together in service, church, social clubs. More hands on and less hired out makes life more rewarding. It increases a personal self worth and confidence factor. Pitching in and giving it your all is contagious. “If it is to be, it is up to me” thinking applied. Like a pot luck supper, everyone brings something in the covered dish to enjoy. People worry and pray for each other in small rural Maine real estate markets and the personal connection is way way stronger.
So small town rural Maine real estate markets.
The inventory has taken a hit as folks online discover how much you can get for so little. But a house for under $40,000 that with a little work can get through the mortgage underwriting hurdles. Those type of listing sales happen all the time.
Big smasher Victorian homes that are way way larger than the 1.6 average kid size families need are popular. Extended stay apartments are re-worked in parts of the house the main family does not need. Or they are converted to granny flats, she sheds, man caves. You home is your castle and less running the roads happens in small town rural Maine real estate markets.
Gardens out back, basketball hoops set up and used along with horse shoe pits, cook out fire rings.
We have acreage not backyards measured in feet or inches. There are no big fences around the small plot of land like you see in city neighborhoods of 300 or more carbon copy housing stock.
The supply of inventory was a four month one the first of the year and has dipped statewide to under two month’s worth.
That tightness for where to land in the musical chairs to find a spot to call your next home combined with rising Maine real estate prices.
That makes the the natural siphon flow action to pull people in urban areas to small town Maine real estate rural locations. Maine has lots of them and with the last mile of Internet all set up and humming strong for the online connection needed for remote telecommuting, the declining population trend is reversed.
A little under 6,000 housing units last Jan 2020 compares to a slightly less than 3000 real estate listing options Jan 2021.
According to the Maine MLS flow charts, house listing compared to sale prices was 96% Jan 2020. For the same month in 2021 the sale prices were over 102% of listed ones.
Housing sale days on market was a tad under 70 days in Jan 2020 and this Jan 2021 the DOM was hovering around 30 days. The home can go under contract within hours or have multiple buyers hanging off it in just a few days from date of listing. The closing process depends on is it cash or a bank fueled sale? All attorneys and title companies are different paced just like in a horse race when the bell sounds and we’re off into turn one. Too many sales for too long a period starts to show the battle fatigue but Mainers are a hardy breed and rise to the occasion to “git ‘er dunn”.
The lack of supply of homes in Maine means sellers not thinking of selling will if they can get a giant price.
Over priced listings won’t appraise if going through a bank and sellers often decide when a buyer does want their place when looking around, the pickin’s are slim. Sellers remorse and pulling a property off the market is being seen.
Why not just buy some Maine land and go out to build build build?
Well the cost of building materials has gone up 30 to 40% and good luck finding a tradesmen to do the excavation, construction, plumbing, electrical work. Get in line, take a number, have a seat. Plenty of time for a nap while waiting and hoping something gets weather tight before snow flakes start falling.
In these Maine real estate market reports we try to avoid the giant sky high prices of Southern Maine that dark shadow the lower to the ground ones in small town rural Maine. But how the market supply, pace, listing to sale price ratios are important to tap to know the pulse of the current Maine real estate market. Thank you for following our Maine real estate blog posts on the statewide and rural market report.
