More and more first-time homebuyers in Maine are looking for an in-law apartment when searching for a place to live.
Housing costs are climbing across the state, while incomes lag behind. First-time homebuyers are finding they can offset the high interest rates and hefty mortgage payments they’re facing with the rental income that an in-law apartment — or, accessory dwelling unit — can generate. And since a recent statewide housing law mandated that ADUs are to be allowed on any lot zoned for a single-family home, there are plenty on the market for buyers to choose from.
“A lot of our first time homebuyers are struggling. Keeping up with the mortgage payment is tricky,” Josh Goston, a Bangor-based real estate agent with NextHome Experience, said. “An in-law apartment up above a garage, or even attached to the house, or the potential to turn the second floor into an in-law — a lot of your first-time homebuyers are interested in it, to curb that.”
Goston has listed a 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom home in Brookton Township that includes an in-law apartment. That feature is not unusual, Goston said. Given Maine’s status as the nation’s oldest state, it’s long been common for homeowners to add living space to their property in order to accommodate an aging relative, he said.
What’s new is that young people, unable to find an affordable home, are increasingly seeing these accessory units as their only option to break into a tight real estate market. While housing inventory in Maine has returned to pre-pandemic levels, home prices have skyrocketed in the past couple of years.
A new state law, LD 2003, paved the way for this trend by making it much easier for homeowners to permit and build accessory dwelling units on their property.
Housing
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Before that law was passed, buying a home with an in-law apartment wouldn’t have been as easy for first-time homebuyers, Stephen Sprague, a real estate agent with ERA Dawson-Bradford Co., said. Many municipalities, including Bangor, used to classify a single-family home with an in-law apartment as a multi-family property, Sprague said. That is more difficult to find financing for as a first-time homebuyer, he said.
“With those [new] laws, a single family [homeowner] can bring someone in the house and charge a rent, and the city won’t bother them or shut them down,” he said.
While some first-time homebuyers are using the proliferation of properties including in-law apartments as an opportunity to “house hack” and invest in multiple homes to rent out short- or long-term, Corey Lee, a real estate agent with Real Broker, said that’s not what most young people are looking for.
“Most people just get the one and are happy to be a homeowner and have somebody’s help paying the mortgage,” he said.
