This house at 98 E. Bridge St. in Westbrook, a 1,352-square-foot home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, is listed at $485,000. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Home sales in Maine keep smashing records, much to buyers’ chagrin.

The median home sale price in Maine last month was $406,000 – the highest on record, according to data released Tuesday by the Maine Association of Realtors. It’s the first time the median price has surpassed $400,000 and the second month of historically high prices.

While prices rose, sales, which had been steadily increasing for the last few months, reversed course. Closings fell 10% compared to June 2023, with 1,291 homes changing hands.

“It was only a matter of time before (Maine) crossed the threshold,” said Paul McKee, president of the Maine Association of Realtors. “It’s no surprise at this point, but it’s unfortunate as well because it speaks to affordability.”

But there are glimmers of hope.

“While the number of sales is down in June, for the first six months of 2024 homes sales are up 2.4% compared to January through June 2023,” said McKee, who is a Portland-based broker with Keller Williams.

There are 4,400 homes on the market, McKee said. It’s the fourth month of “notable improvement” in the number of active listings and the highest level of inventory in almost three years.

It’s a welcome sign, but prices will continue to appreciate as long as inventory remains limited, he said, and inventory will remain limited until more people embrace the YIMBY – or Yes In My Backyard – movement.

“Zoning regulations and restrictions continue to prevent some of this,” he said. “We need to become more accepting of loosening some of those things to allow affordable building.”

The Maine Association of Realtors also looks at three months of data in county-by-county comparisons to get a larger sample size of sale transactions.

Sales inched upward by about 1% between April 1 and June 30 compared to the same period last year, while prices increased about 6% to $398,250.

Sales figures were a mixed bag, with six counties reporting decreases and 10 reporting increases. At either end of the spectrum, closings decreased by over 21% in Somerset County and increased by 15% in Waldo County.

Cumberland County remains the most expensive county in Maine, with a median sale price of $580,000, a 6.5% increase over the same three-month period last year. York County was the second highest, with a $523,750 median, a 6.8% increase, and Knox County remained just shy of the $500,000 mark, with a median of $497,500, a 5.5% increase.

Piscataquis County saw the largest price increase, an almost 42% jump from $170,000 to $241,000.

Meanwhile, prices remained flat in Aroostook County at $155,000 and fell in four others. Washington County saw the biggest price decrease – a 16.5% dip from $221,000 to $185,000.

The national market mimics Maine’s. Single-family home sales fell about 4% last month compared to June 2023, but the median sale price increased 4% to $432,700, according to the National Association of Realtors. Regionally, home sales in the northeast dipped 6% from the prior year but prices jumped almost 10% to a median of $521,500.

DISCERNING A SHIFT

Despite the half-million dollar median, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors echoed McKee, saying that things are starting to shift from a seller’s to a buyer’s market.

“Homes are sitting on the market a bit longer, and sellers are receiving fewer offers. More buyers are insisting on home inspections and appraisals, and inventory is definitively rising on a national basis,” Lawrence Yun said. “Even as the median home price reached a new record high, further large accelerations are unlikely.”

Total housing inventory nationally sits at a 4.1-month supply, up from a 3.1-month supply in June 2023 and the first time since May 2020 that unsold inventory passed four months, according to the national association. A six-month supply is considered a balanced market.

Mortgage rates also are headed in the right direction, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac.

The current average rate for a 30-year mortgage was 6.77% last week, down from 6.89% the week before.

“However, homebuyers have yet to respond to lower rates, as purchase application demand is still roughly 5% below spring, when rates were approximately the same,” Freddie Mac said in a statement. “This is not uncommon: sometimes as rates decline, demand weakens, and the apparent paradox is driven by buyers making sure rates don’t decline further before they decide to purchase.”