York County real estate: 2 homes sell for near-record $8.4M as median price hits $553,700

YORK COUNTY, Maine — So far in 2024, there has not been a home sale in York County to top the record set last December when a Kennebunkport residence sold for $9 million , but two properties in York have come relatively close.

According to Heather Leach, president of the York County Council of the Maine Association of Realtors , two single-family homes on Bayberry Lane and Peradventure Way in York sold for $8.4 million in April and June, respectively.

The third highest-priced selling home so far in 2024 — at 14 Summit Ave. in Kennebunkport — went for $7.7 million in March, according to Leach.

All three purchases were made in cash, Leach added. All three were coastal properties located either on the waterfront or in view of it.

Built in 2018, the home at 4 Bayberry Lane was listed at nearly $9 million. The shingle-style, sand pearl-colored residence has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and four fireplaces and sits on 1.81 acres.

Abigail Douris of Abigail Douris Real Estate in York served as the listing agent, while Michael Giannone of the Aland Realty Group in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, served as the selling agent.

Built in 2020, the house at 4 Peradventure Way was listed at just under $8 million, or $400,000 less than its eventual purchase amount. The home, gray and shingle-styled, has six bedrooms, six bathrooms, and two fireplaces. It sits on 1.79 acres.

Troy Williams of Keller Williams Coastal and Lakes and Mountains Realty in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Tony Jalbert of Tate and Foss Sotheby’s International Realty in Rye, New Hampshire, served as listing and selling agents, respectively.

As for the third highest-selling home in Kennebunkport, it’s a tan, shingle-styled residence built in 1910 and has seven bedrooms, six bathrooms, and six fireplaces. The property is 1.2 acres.

William Gaynor of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty in Kennebunk listed the home at $8.5 million. Lise Dewar of Pack Maynard and Associates in Kennebunk was the selling agent.

York County median home sale price hits $553,700

The median sales price for a single-family home in York County was $553,700 in June, up from $475,000 in June 2023 and 2022, according to Leach. In terms of the highest median price throughout all 16 counties in Maine, York County was second only to Cumberland County, where the figure stands at $585,000.

Aroostook County has the lowest median price at $150,000, according to Maine Listings.

Realtors sold 1,106 single-family homes throughout York County during the first six months of this year, Leach said.

Leach described the current scenario as a “housing crisis,” one in which inventory is low and prices are out of the reach of a lot of couples and families who want to buy a place to call their own.

“It’s not specific just to Maine,” Leach said. “It is nationwide.”

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Home prices soar due to lack of inventory

Leach said she recently returned from a conference, where she learned there is the same number of homes available in America in 2023 as in 1995, but there are now approximately 70 million more people.

Leach said the high prices of homes and interest rates frustrate a lot of potential buyers, many of whom end up suspending their searches for a place they can afford.

“Home ownership is always the way to go because of the investment,” Leach said. “But it’s just not for the faint of heart. It just isn’t.”

Part of the reason why home prices are high is builders nowadays must wade through bureaucracy before they can even start working at the site of a future house, according to Leach. After going through a town’s permitting and planning processes, a developer often spends tens of thousands of dollars “just to put a shovel in the ground.”

“There is now so much red tape to build homes that we can’t build them,” Leach said.

On top of that, Leach said, building materials are more expensive these days.

Also, though the interest rate for housing loans has come down in recent months, its current placement at roughly 7% still manages to cut into a potential buyer’s purchasing power, according to Leach. Just a few years ago, the rate was as low as in the 3% range.

To get through the crisis, Leach suggested a few things need to happen.

Municipalities need to pull back on the amount of red tape developers need to wade through, she said.

There needs to be a shift from classifying new homes as “affordable housing,” a term which Leach said has negative connotations, to referring to them instead as “workforce housing,” she added.

Lastly, Leach said, realtors can continue to work together towards the same goal – connecting buyers with new homes. While competition between real estate agencies is normal, even more collaboration among realtors would benefit the market, she added.

“Whether you’re representing a buyer, or you’re representing a seller, we all have the same goal: to get to the closing table and to make homeownership possible for as many people as possible,” Leach said. “Because it has been so competitive, I think we have forgotten that, as realtors, we are colleagues. I would like to see us show up as our best selves, professionally.”

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This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: York County real estate: 2 homes sell for near-record $8.4M as median price hits $553,700