A few years ago, the 5-bedroom home Julie Barros is listing in Kennebunkport would have sold at just about any price.
It was first listed in August at $2.2 million but sat on the market for months. So Barros decided to cut the home’s listing price by $180,000 last month. That spurred a new wave of interest, and the agent expects the property to go under contract soon.
“That crazy market that we had a couple years ago is gone, where we had to sit in our cars and write offers,” Barros, a real estate agent with Lighthouse Real Estate Group, said. “It really is balancing out.”
Though price cuts usually happen around this time every year as the market chills with the weather, they are at the highest level nationwide that they have been in five years, Realtor.com found. Agents in Maine say it represents a tipping point, and it could even signal that the hot real estate market of the last five years is shifting slightly toward buyers.
Price reductions are happening because of a confluence of events. More inventory is coming on line. While Maine is back to pre-pandemic levels, supply is still generally low. Mortgage rates are stubbornly high, though they retreated slightly last week. All of that means potential buyers here and across the nation are waiting for prices to drop, Barros said.
The market is adjusting in response. Sellers who have been watching Maine’s hot market for the last couple of years and overestimated their property’s value are now lowering prices in order to sell, Alan Thach, a Portland-based real estate agent with Keller Williams, said.
If they do not, their property will sit. Maine homes are on the market for a median of 40 days, according to Redfin. That’s a 10 percent increase from this time last year. Home prices and values are still climbing in Maine, but widespread price cuts across all price levels indicate that something has shifted.
Price cuts are most stark in the high-end market, but they are happening at lower price points too. A duplex Thach has listed in Arundel was cut by $10,000 last month and now sits at $399,000. A property in Unity listed by Emily Theriault, an agent with Pouliot Real Estate in Augusta, was reduced by the same amount and is now at $379,000.
While these price reductions are a symptom of a balancing market, Theriault cautioned that they are also seasonal. Each year, the holiday season is a slower time of year for sales. To keep properties competitive, agents adjust prices.
“We still have a pretty competitive market out there,” Theriault said. “Some people may not be as motivated as they are at different times of year.”
Agents like Barros do see this season as a shift, though. Even properties that are priced appropriately are going for $5,000 to $10,000 over asking price. A year or two ago, those properties would have gone for $50,000 to $70,000 over, she said.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a buyer’s market yet, but it’s a really good time right now for buyers because there’s a lot more inventory coming on, the rates are coming down a little bit,” Barros said.
