The BDN is exploring Maine’s housing disaster from each doable angle, from the way it impacts house costs, to what it means for Mainers throughout the state. Learn our ongoing protection right here and fill out this kind to inform us what you wish to know.
Lisa Savage and her husband, Mark Roman, determined to remain in Solon after trying unsuccessfully to maneuver nearer to their grandchildren in Portland.
The results of in the present day’s excessive housing costs, little stock and inflationary pressures are rippling by way of their household as effectively.
Their oldest son, a lawyer who needed to maneuver his household from Oakland, California, to Portland, appeared in useless for a 12 months. Their youngest son, a digital producer in New York Metropolis who has a good-paying job with advantages, doesn’t exit as a result of he frets over the $40 copay for an everyday medical remedy, mentioned Savage, who ran as an unbiased in Maine’s hotly contested 2020 U.S. Senate race.
The couple is ready to deal with their mortgage, tax and insurance coverage funds for now utilizing her union pension and their Social Safety and Medicare funds, “however any huge expense would sink us,” mentioned Savage, who retired as a college trainer three years in the past. Roman, a woodworker, is semi-retired.
They’re saving for a $1,000 driveway restore, but when something went mistaken with one in all their automobiles they’d most likely change into a one-car household, she mentioned. They’re contemplating trimming purchases of extra dear natural meals.
Savage and Roman are faring higher than the various Mainers struggling to pay excessive rents or mortgages within the face of rising utility, gasoline and grocery prices. However the tales of their members of the family mirror the extreme pressures of in the present day’s actual property market.
Portland resident Justin Raschick, a touring nurse, is being evicted from the condo he has lived in since 2015 after it was bought.
He has had bother discovering a brand new condo he can afford in Portland, and has appeared in his house state of Vermont, the place condo costs in Burlington are also excessive. He has certified for a mortgage, however it isn’t giant sufficient to afford a house in in the present day’s market.
He should depart his present condo on the finish of August, and is going through reinstated funds of $1,700 per thirty days for his pupil loans in September.
“I’ll most likely must put my issues into storage, sofa hop and stick with buddies,” he mentioned.
House costs have been rising alongside house costs. Greater than half of Maine’s renters noticed their month-to-month lease rise wherever from lower than $100 per thirty days to greater than $500 per thirty days over the previous 12 months, in keeping with current U.S. Census Bureau knowledge.
The median gross sales value for a single-family house in Maine additionally has been on the rise, up nearly 20 p.c from $292,250 in January to $350,000 in Might, in keeping with the Maine Affiliation of Realtors. June knowledge is due later this month. A typical neighborhood in Maine is seeing house values rise by greater than $2,000 in only one month, in keeping with Zillow.
Mortgage charges are up greater than 2 proportion factors to above 5 p.c for a 30-year mounted mortgage because the begin of the 12 months, inflicting some would-be patrons to attend. Nevertheless it nonetheless isn’t clear whether or not the true property market is transitioning into slower value development and fewer purchaser competitors, Madeleine Hill, president of the Maine Affiliation of Realtors, mentioned.
For potential patrons, Cumberland and York counties have the very best house costs within the state, whereas there are nonetheless comparatively inexpensive properties in Aroostook and Piscatquis, which have the bottom costs on common.
A current Harvard College research discovered {that a} purchaser wants a six-figure revenue to buy a home within the Portland and South Portland space. However even within the least costly areas, reminiscent of Mexico in Oxford County, house values escalated from $60,000 for a typical house pre-pandemic to 4 properties within the city promoting for greater than $300,000 this 12 months.
On account of rising costs on nearly every part, the rental and residential markets have seen some uncommon behaviors because the starting of the 12 months.
Some patrons grew to become inventive to face out in a market the place a number of presents above asking value grew to become, and nonetheless are, the norm. Throughout the nation, they included those that supplied sellers Hawaiian holidays or Bitcoin funds to make their bids stand out.
Some sellers, looking for the perfect purchaser to suit their property, connected uncommon circumstances, just like the Down East island proprietor who needed potential patrons to first spend an evening there to see if they may adapt.
There have been additionally patrons who merely wanted a break. Jennifer Wolfe and Chase Dolloff launched into a house-hunting journey throughout which they competed with money patrons providing $50,000 or extra over asking costs for properties that bought inside days of itemizing. It took 14 presents till they met the proper proprietor, who needed to promote to Mainers and appreciated the couple.
Even the condo market noticed some uncommon behaviors. Portland skilled its first condo bidding warfare in April, when a younger couple had been requested, together with different condo seekers, to provide their greatest supply for April lease, and the remaining months every could be the marketed $1,400. Portland’s tight housing market could be a nightmare even for these with good credit score.
With a scarcity of high-priced housing, inflation at a 40-year excessive and two baggage of groceries costing $100 or extra, many Mainers fear about what the long run will maintain.
“I don’t know the way we’re alleged to reside,” Raschick mentioned.
