January home sales in Maine hit 2nd highest monthly record

By Sierra Whaley, Bangor Daily News Staff

Home sales for the month of January were the second-best on record for single-family homes in Maine. 

The median sales price for Maine homes rose to $292,250 in January of 2022, a more than 14 percent increase from an average price of $255,300 in January 2021. Nearly 1,200 homes across Maine have closed in the month of January, compared with a record of 1,256 homes sold in January 2021. 

“Over the past two years, the pandemic has altered the way that households live and work. Remote employment arrangements and increasing sales prices have expanded home search areas, and we’re seeing Maine’s more rural counties rejuvenated by this demand,” according to Madeline Hill, president of the Maine Association of Realtors. 

Hancock County saw the largest drop in home sales, with a 24.53 percent drop from November of 2021 through January of 2022 compared with those same months in 2021 and 2022.

Androscoggin County saw the largest increase, with 7.99 percent to 338 units over the three-month period. In terms of median sales price across the state, prices increased in all 16 of Maine’s counties.

The largest increase was in Piscataquis County, with median sales price jumping to $170,000, or a 38.78 percent increase during the comparison period.

The county with the least amount of increase compared with the same period last year was Lincoln County, where the median price was $334,500, a 4.6 percent increase.

Sales of single-family existing homes across the country decreased 2.4 percent in the past year, while the national average price of a single-family home jumped 15.9 percent to $357,100 from January 2022 to January 2021, according to the National Association of Realtors. 

Regionally, sales in the Northeast declined by 8.2 percent, while the average price of a single-family home climbed by 6 percent, to an average of $382,800, over that same time period.