Thanks to 3 powerful forces that have come together at exactly the same time during the pandemic, this is one of best times ever to sell your house. It’s a “seller’s market on steroids”! Let’s take a couple of minutes to see exactly why:
Far Fewer Houses on the Market
For most of us, normal life has been completely upended by the pandemic. And that has definitely been true for “Homes for Sale” listings in Maine. As recently reported by the Portland Press Herald and CentralMaine.com, the number of Maine homes for sale in April was down fully 19 percent compared with a year earlier, as home sellers pulled back amid fears of unemployment and letting people into their homes. This means when you sell your house you are competing with far fewer sellers—allowing you to stand out from the pack.
Home Prices Shooting Up Like a Rocket
It’s Economics 101 that when you have a shortage of something, the price of that “something” goes up—sometimes very dramatically. And that’s exactly what’s happened with home prices in Maine. As “For Sale” signs on front lawns have become scarcer, the median price of a home in Maine has exploded by fully 12.3 percent, leaping from $210,000 in April 2019 to more than $235,800 last month, according to the website Maine Listings, which is owned by the Maine Association of Realtors. Fourteen of Maine’s 16 counties posted similar, very dramatic price increases.
Highly Motivated Buyers
Although the pandemic has led to fewer home buyers in Maine during the second quarter of the year, the ones “out there” now are much more highly motivated than usual. This is true, in no small part, because home buyers now can enjoy mortgage interest rates that CNBC and the Mortgage Bankers Association reported as being at “record lows.” Since real estate showings across Maine temporarily involve social distance protocols such as disinfecting high-touch surfaces and donning latex gloves, face masks, and booties before entering a for-sale home, “casual shoppers” are no longer much in evidence. They’ve been dramatically replaced by the highly motivated ones.
A Final Thought
Although we’ve all seen the world go topsy-turvy this year, the “reality on the ground” is that market forces have made this a superb time to sell your house. If you’d like to benefit from “The Maine Source Difference” to successfully sell your house this summer, we invite you to contact us today!
About Maine Source Homes & Realty
Maine Source Homes & Realty is dedicated to helping you find your perfect home-ownership solution. Whether you wish to buy, sell, or build a home, Maine Source Homes & Realty invites you to benefit from our 48 years of trustworthy experience and expertise.