Maine’s housing inventory is back to 2020 levels

After years of record low supply, Maine’s housing inventory is rebounding.

Maine’s active inventory for single-family homes statewide is 74 percent higher than this time last year, according to Maine’s Multiple Listing Service . Across all housing types, inventory, meaning homes that are on the market, is back to where it was in 2020, though supply still pales in comparison to what it was pre-pandemic.

“It’s the beginning of a potential shift,” Brit Vitalius, principal and owner of the Portland-based Vitalius Real Estate Group, said. “The market has opened up a little bit.”

Higher inventory could mean that, as more properties sit on the market longer, homebuyers will have more time to consider all their options, Vitalius said. Sellers then might be more open to conventional means of financing, which would allow regular homebuyers to compete with cash offers.

The multi-family market has seen a particularly dramatic increase in inventory since March this year alone, Vitalius said. Many such properties are even seeing price reductions, he said, something he puts down to lessening demand for those types of properties.

It’s a positive turn of events, but the increase in inventory is still not enough to meet housing demand in Maine, Dava Davin, founder and principal of Portside Real Estate Group, said. A landmark study last fall found the state was short at least 76,000 homes .

And with “stubbornly high” prices persisting, the added supply won’t be too much of a reprieve for the average Maine household looking to buy a home, Davin said.

“The problem is still there’s not enough homes on the market for our first-time homebuyers,” Pam Libby, an associate broker at NextHome Experience in Bangor, said. “It’s still a challenge.”

Libby is seeing more homes coming online, but they’re often not in the pristine condition a property needs to be in for some to finance it using a FHA, VA or USDA-type loan, she said.

“There’s a lot of out-of-state cash still coming in,” she added.

Whether buyers can take advantage of the added inventory and compete in this market is dependent not only on the price and condition of housing, but on place, too.

“Most towns here along the coast, if the property is priced appropriately, we are still seeing houses on the market between three and four days for showings and going under contract right away,” Andrea Galuza, a broker with Portside Real Estate Group, said.

It isn’t clear to real estate agents why more inventory is coming online. It could be that the demand for homes that peaked during the pandemic is subsiding, or that we’re seeing some results from Maine’s efforts to boost housing production in recent years.

Vitalius hypothesizes high mortgage interest rates prohibit buyers from entering the market.

“The expectation that the rates would drop and you could refinance have changed,” he said. “We’re in an adjustment period.”