Housing
This section of the BDN aims to help readers understand Maine’s housing crisis, the volatile real estate market and the public policy behind them. Read more Housing coverage here.
Some of the Maine towns where home values have increased the most in the past year may surprise you.
While coastal towns like Kennebunkport, where home prices recently eclipsed $1 million, saw huge increases in home values driven by a massive wave of in-migration by new residents, some cheaper inland areas have also seen a double-digit increase in home values. Many of them are around lakes or serve as suburbs.
Leading the pack is Rome, a rural community in the Belgrade Lakes region that has seen an 11.6 percent increase in home values since October 2023, according to Zillow. Rome has benefited from families relocating because of a good school system and buyers priced out of southern Maine who want a second home with water access, one real estate agent said.
“Rome is a wonderful community with lots of hiking trails and waterfront,” Stephanie Gardner, a Rome-based realtor with Lakepoint Real Estate, said. “It’s just amped up over the last four years. We’ve just seen a lot of people come to this area.”
Similarly, retirees looking to escape the hustle and bustle of the city or those embracing remote work opportunities have found refuge in the tiny Oxford County town of Sumner, where home values leapt 11.3 percent in the last four years.
“It is a very quiet country town, but there’s access to Auburn and Bethel and all those areas,” Julia Gonsalves, a Sumner-based realtor with Biz Realty, said, adding that fiber internet access has also become a draw there.
Low inventory in these towns and others like them means that demand for homes is still steady a couple years out of the pandemic, especially in the first-time homebuyer market. Though home values are still increasing in these inland towns, agents say the market is now cooling.
“A lot of people are blaming it on interest rates from the bank, or it being [an] election year,” Gardner said. “I have a feeling that, come spring, it’s just going to take off again … hopefully those bank rates will come down a little bit.”
In Rome, median sale prices have increased on average in the last five years, but the median days a home spends on the market is up to 63 days, according to Redfin.
Even in pricey coastal enclaves, things are cooling off across all price points, too, Eva Sawtelle, an agent with the Town Square Realty Group, said. Though Kennebunkport has also seen a 10.3 percent increase in home values since March, 2020, five properties for sale have also had their prices slashed by up to $200,000 in the last week, according to Zillow.
One of those homes is a large property with a restored barn Sawtelle’s agency has listed for nearly $2 million in town, which saw a $105,000 price cut this week.
“I haven’t seen things moving as quickly as they were about a year ago,” Sawtelle said. “Interest rates have increased, so it’s a little more challenging across the board.”
