Maine home sales dropped in November, but prices kept climbing
Courtesy / Trulia, Town Square Realty Group
A two-bedroom, one-bath ranch house on five acres in Alfred was listed this week at $329,000.
For the fifth straight month, the number of homes sold in Maine dropped during November while prices continued to climb amid low inventory.
Mirroring national trends, home sales across the state fell 8% while prices rose 11.1%, the Maine Association of Realtors said Wednesday.
The median sales price reached $300,000 last month, compared to $270,000 in November 2020. The median sales price is the level at which half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less.
“The high demand for Maine residential real estate is stymied by the tight supply of homes for sale across our state,” said Aaron Bolster, broker and owner of Allied Realty in Skowhegan and president of the Maine Association of Realtors.
Despite lower sales volume in recent months, the overall period of January through November was one of Maine’s best, Bolster said.
For the period, the number of residential real estate transactions were 4.1% above the comparable time period in 2020, Maine’s historical high. The results for this year were 12.3% higher than the comparable time period of 2019, prior to the pandemic.
Inventory remains tight. There were 33% fewer homes for sale in November than in the period a year ago, and 59% fewer than in November 2019.
The benchmark for a balanced real estate market is a six-month supply of homes for sale. The current numbers indicate a 1.7-month supply, Bolster said.
“Move-in ready homes are in extremely high demand and qualified buyers are ready to purchase. We expect a solid finish to 2021,” says Bolster.
The National Association of Realtors saw a 2.2% decrease in single-family home sales across the country, compared with a year ago. Prices rose 14.9% to a national median sales price of $362,600.
Regionally, sales in the Northeast dropped 11.6% in November, while the median sales price rose 4.7% to $372,500.
For the three-month period from Sept. 1 through Nov. 30, median sale prices rose in every county across Maine. The number of homes sold, however, fell in every county but Aroostook and Kennebec.
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