Courtesy / Maine LIfe Real Estate
Rob Edgerley, of Maine Life Real Estate, compiles the "Maine's Hottest Towns" list every year.
Updated: February 26, 2020
Inside Maine's 'hottest' real estate towns of 2019
Photo / Maureen Milliken
New residential development at Scarborough Downs helped boost Scarborough up the hottest towns list for 2019.
By Maureen Milliken
It's no secret that Maine single-family house and condominium sales were off the chart in 2019, but the secret sauce that makes some towns and cities extra hot may not be as obvious.
That's where the annual "Maine's Hottest Towns" list comes in.
The list, compiled by Rob Edgerley of Maine Life Real Estate in Scarborough, and released two weeks ago, tracks the towns and cities that showed the biggest spike in home sales for the year that just ended, with Hampden topping the charts at a 17.6% increase in sales over 2018.
Edgerley isn't surprised that single-family home sales are hot in general. The list follows a report from the Maine Association of Realtors that 2019 was a record year for home sales across the state. And Edgerley also sees it ever day at his brokerage, which focuses on southern Maine. Usually January and February are slow, but in recent years, they haven't been.
But, "Hampden was a surprise," he said. The Penobscot County town of 7,300 just south of Bangor flies under the radar for those not in the area.
While both the hottest towns list and the Maine Association of Realtors get their stats from the Maine Listing Service, hottest towns includes new construction sales, while the MAR stats are for existing homes.
Hottest behind Hampden was an eclectic mix: Augusta, Kennebunk, Scarborough, Bridgton, Lewiston, Waterboro, Kittery, Cape Elizabeth and Cumberland.
This was the fifth year that Edgerley has compiled the list and every year he tweaks it a little. For instance, this year he cut the full list off at 20 towns and cities. The year before, he’d listed 33.
Keys to hotness
One thing that hasn’t changed is "they've got to have something going on," he said. The true keys to hotness are new construction, being close to major urban centers or employers and having "something exciting happening." A combination of all three is magic.
Because so many of the state's towns and cities are small — the average size is about 3,000 population — one new development can put a town on top of the list, as was the case with Standish last year.
“New construction can spike it,” he said. “Even a cluster of five or six homes can spike it up.”
In 2019, Scarborough's 500-acre mixed-use development, The Downs, helped push the town to fourth on the list.
Scarborough, with a population of 19,900 and a variety of new construction and solid older inventory, is hot anyway, Edgerley said. But in 2019, 90 of the 464 houses sold were at the new development. "The Downs really put it over the top.” The number of houses sold was 14.85% more than the 404 in 2018.
Edgerley said older houses are selling, too. He said a house in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood recently sold for $695,000 after getting multiple offers. The 3,200-square-foot house is on a big lot, but not anything extraordinary. "We're just scratching our heads," he said.
He said, though, the fact last year's top town, Standish, isn't on the list, doesn't mean it's not hot. Since the list measures year-over-year growth, "There's no reason Standish shouldn't remain hot."
Photo / Maureen Milliken
New home construction in Hampden slowed a little in 2019, but that didn't stop it from being the "hottest town" in Maine real estate.
Hot, hot Hampden
In Hampden, things have been hot for a while. They can’t build houses fast enough.
Literally.
“People aren’t willing to wait the six months for a house to be built,” said Renee Hudgens of the Chez Renee team at Realty of Maine, in Bangor and past president of the county board of realtors.
Hudgens’ team sold 160 houses in 2013, 23 of them in Hampden. After Bangor, it’s their second biggest market. The difference is, Bangor has a population of 31,900, and Hampden, just south of Bangor on the Penobscot River, has a population of 7,300.
The town is dotted with new or newer housing developments, particularly in its western section along U.S. Route 202, and south along U.S. Route 1A. But, like Scarborough, older homes are selling, too.
Hudgens said that many sales in Hampden are driven by hires at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Penobscot County’s biggest employer and the fifth-largest in the state, though that also includes its other locations.
The town is close enough to Bangor that people can get to work in less than a half hour, but also has a village feel, and is one of the few in the area were homes are available on the banks of the Penobscot River. The town developed as a “trolley suburb” of Bangor two centuries ago, and is now the 21st-century equivalent, with many of those living there commuting to the city.
Its main drag, Main Road, stretches along the river, and has a small town center in the north area. It recent years it’s also spread along Route 202 west, with newer houses dotting former farmland. There are several new developments, as well as ones that have been built in the past five or six years.
'Excited for spring'
Hudgens said while new construction has slowed in the town, and she'd like to see more, “It seems that when they’re building, they’re building in Hampden."
Only two new construction homes listing with the MLS were sold last year, but Hudgens said many developers are selling them before they can list the, or waiting to sell a lot before building.
Houses built in a pre-recession construction surge, and a post-recession one that began six or seven years ago are selling to second buyers now.
Hampden was her team’s biggest market in 2018, too. And a good chunk are going to buyers from out of state — 23 in 2019, and 18 in 2018.
Edgerley cites the town's work to develop its core into more of a downtown center. Hudgens said the town also has a reputation for good schools, and a new $51 million Hampden Academy, which is the campus for all the town’s schools, was built in 2012.
According to U.S. Census data, the town has a median income of $87,708; the state’s median is $57,277. In 2019, it was listed as Maine’s second-safest town, after Cumberland, by Safewise.com.
Hudgens wasn't surprised the town was Maine's hottest in 2019.
"I've felt that for the last couple of years running," she said. She doesn’t see things slowing down any time soon.
"I'm excited for spring," she said. "Things in Hampden will continue to be hot."
Photo / Maureen Milliken
Single family home sales in Augusta aren't the only thing that's hot. Sales of multi-families in established in-town neighborhoods, like this Melville Street stretch, also made 2019 a big residential real estate year in the capital city.
Downtown on the move
Edgerley said the “something exciting” factor can be a big development, like The Downs in Scarborough, or a downtown resurgence, like the one in Augusta. Some 268 homes were sold in the Capital City in 2019, a 17.03% increase over 2018.
The city's downtown 10 years ago was a sleepy service-oriented four-block stretch. In recent years, Water Street has come alive with restaurants and market-rate apartments, part of a group effort by developers, town officials and the Downtown Alliance
While there is some new construction, houses are changing hands in established neighborhoods within walking distance of downtown. Heather Pouliot, recently elected to the city council and president of the Downtown Alliance, said she's experienced the city's home sale surge first hand.
She and her husband, state Sen. Matt Pouliot, sold their house on Winthrop Street, one of the city's historic eighborhoods, last summer. "The majority of people looking at it were from out of state, and wanting to be in Augusta rather than other places in central Maine because of the walking distance to the downtown and everything happening down there," she said.
Pouliot and her husband, a real estate broker, also redevelop and sell real estate in the city. She said the in-town airport, with flights to Boston, the 45-minute drive to Portland and the lower cost of housing are also draws. The median price of a house in Augusta last year was about $149,000, in Portland it was $244,000.
Not only are single-family homes hot, but a lot of investment property has also changed hands, including multi-family homes and apartment buildings, she said. An example is one-block-long Melville Street, where a search of sold homes in the city shows at least four single and multi-family houses, all built in the 19th century, changing hands last year.
"I believe folks from outside of Augusta are seeing that the downtown is growing, and becoming a place that people want to be, so they are investing early so they can capitalize on their return," she said.
MaineGeneral Health, the state's seventh-largest private employer, opened the Alfond Center for Health at the northern edge of the city in 2013, combining hospitals in Waterville and Portland. As in Hampden, officials have said that professionals coming to the area work for the health care system are now considering Augusta.
"The job market is expanding in certain fields, like health care," Pouliot said. "MaineGeneral is bringing people into Augusta often, and they are buying homes and moving their families here."
Heat will stay on high
Edgerley said another factor is attractiveness for vacation or retirement homes, something he believes boosted Bridgton and Waterboro onto the list.
With Portland's tight market pushing home buyers into surrounding communities, that area will continue to stay hot. "Anywhere in Scarborough, anywhere in South Portland," he said. "Portland, Westbrook, Falmouth."
He said that "people are getting deals” in areas south and west of Portland that used to fly under the radar.
Places like Buxton, in York County, which once seemed far out of town, are now within reach. Buxton is 16 miles from the Portland line, out Route 22, which turns into Congress Street.
“A lot of it has to do with geography and commute time,” he said.
Sleeping giant, hidden gems
His predictions for next year are that Topsham is "a sleeping giant." Adjacent to Brunswick, it's right off Interstate 295 and not a bad commute to Portland to the south or Augusta to the north.
Some secrets for people who want to be near the ocean but can't afford traditional hot spots like Cape Elizabeth are West Bath and Harpswell. "There are so many places on the midcoast," he said.
Bigger picture? "There's just demand everywhere."
He said that he sees Maine as in a transition period, with a focus on planning, growing businesses and bringing new people to the state.
"The only thing stagnating is that buyers can't find inventory," he said.
One thing, too, the state has going for it is Maine itself.
"We live here for a reason and I feel like more people are figuring it out," he said. “People come up a couple times a year, and they say, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to buy a condo in Portland,’ or on a lake.
"People like Maine and they want to live here.”
Hudgens, in Hampden, said the same thing. “People want to live here,” she said. “Because Maine is a cool place to live.”
Edgerley said when the market started really gathering steam "we held our breath."
“It took years,” he said. “So many people got stung in the last downturn [in 2008].” Things started picking up in 2011. “And they haven’t stopped for 10 years."
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