Maine’s housing market surpassed all previous records for the month of October, with sales up nearly 27 percent from a year earlier and the median sales price up nearly 25 percent.
The increase in home sales was driven at least in part by an increasing number of homes being sold to out-of-staters, figures from the Maine Association of Realtors show.
The continued growth in sales fueled higher prices, with the median sales price for a home in Maine rising to $280,000 last month, an increase of 24.5 percent from October 2019. The median price indicates that half of homes sold for more than that figure and half for less.
The increase in home sales pushed this year’s activity beyond the pace set in 2019, which had been the busiest ever for real estate transactions in the state. Tom Cole, president of the Maine Association of Realtors and managing broker of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate/The Masiello Group in Brunswick, said home sales from January through October are running 5.6 percent ahead of the figure for the same time period last year.
Sales in the state fell sharply in April in May as the coronavirus took hold and limited travel and business activity.
Cole said the increase is also being driven in part by out-of-state buyers, with slightly more than one-third of transactions involving buyers from outside of Maine during October. Typically, he said, about a quarter of Maine home sales involve a buyer from out of state.
He also said low mortgage rates – about 3 percent for a typical 30-year-loan – are partly responsible for increasing sales and higher prices.
The association said 2,341 homes were sold in Maine last month, compared with 1,845 in October 2019. The median sales price of $280,000 was a sharp increase over the median of $224,900 in October a year ago.
All but Penobscot and Kennebec Counties posted sharp increases in home sales for the three-month period ending Oct. 31, and every county recorded an increase in the median sales price, led by Lincoln County with an increase of nearly 50 percent, from $235,000 a year ago to $347,500.
The National Association of Realtors said sales around the country increased by 26.7 percent last month from a year earlier, with the national median sales price rising by 16 percent to $317,700. In the Northeast region, sales increased by 30.4 percent in October from a year earlier, and the median sales price increased by 20.2 percent to $356,500.
This story will be updated.
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November 20, 2020 at 02:35AM
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October home sales up 27% in Maine, reaching historic peak - Press Herald
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