Despite higher interest rates, inflation and a host of other challenges, the pace of construction in Maine isn’t letting up.
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Even with fear over how the economy would respond to inflation, higher interest rates and labor shortages, the pace for the people in the real estate and construction fields has not slowed down in the past few years.
Tony DiSotto, KeyBank’s market president for Maine and Vermont, told me recently that he’s telling clients to be realistic about interest rates, advising that they’ll be “higher for longer” than we might expect. We all need to get used to that.
And yet buildings are still going up. Plans are still being made. The housing market in Maine is still tightly wound, with too little inventory for an abundance of potential buyers and renters. The median sales price for a home in Maine has barely budged, staying at around $354,000.
Potential buyers are still entering bidding wars for the best houses. On the flip side, Realtors are feeling the competition from other brokers.
As Senior Writer Renee Cordes writes in our cover story, real estate professionals like Yulia Glasgow of Maine Real Estate Co. are increasingly turning to social media to build a following — and court potential clients.
“For Glasgow and many of her peers, social media isn’t just a hobby or creative outlet, it’s an essential tool to stand out and generate leads in a competitive industry,” Renee writes. “Whether they’re posting new listings or closings or more personal things like snapshots of pets, babies and vacations, real estate agents in Maine and elsewhere are using media to promote their brand, stay connected to clients and find new ones.”
They’re also keeping tabs on what their peers and rivals are up to.
Elsewhere in the issue, Senior Writer Laurie Schreiber checks in on the progress of a welcome center for Acadia National Park. See “New builds” on Page 20.
