Home sales were on a steep decline in November as the number of for-sales homes remained low across the state in November, existing home sales released Wednesday by the Maine Association of Realtors showed.
While the number of homes sold this past November dropped nearly 30 percent from last year, the average price of a single-family home reached $325,000, down slightly from October’s figure and an 8.3 percent price increase from November 2021 home prices.
November 2022 sales were down about 28 percent compared with a year ago due to tight inventory and high mortgage interest rates. Overall, home sales declined across all 16 counties last month.
“While demand remains steady for Maine’s tight for-sale inventory, increased mortgage interest rates, coupled with the typical holiday slowdown, have impacted the market,”Madeleine Hill, president of the association, said.
Nationally, sales were down for the 10th-straight month, falling nearly 33 percent compared with last November. The median sales price was up about 3 percent to $376,700 , according to the National Association of Realtors.
Lincoln and Knox counties in Maine each saw a more than 25 percent decline in home sales when comparing September through November of this year and last year. Washington County saw the highest rise in median sales price, up 18.7 percent to $200,000.
