Maine Real Estate Market Report
A quarter of the way through May and I'm just now getting a chance to post the April market report of single family homes in Lincoln County. That's a blog post in itself, we've been busy, May is looking good! But we'll have to wait until next month for that report.
Many of us consider April of '07 to be one of the worst weather months in recent history, that has been well documented in this space so no need to recap further. But it is important to point out that we are looking at closings in this report and closings are actually more indicative of sales that were made 30 to 60 days prior. So while this is the actual sales report for April, we could just as easily look at it as the measure of the late winter period.
For the month of April, in Lincoln County we had 52 closed sides of residential properties for a dollar volume of $12,294,600. In April of '06 we had 36 closed sides for a dollar volume of $13,760,930. This is pretty consistent with our anecdotal evidence of lots of activity this year but at lower prices. This also follows on the heels of a good March and a poor February.
I'm afraid this is pretty much how our market is going to be for awhile. Up and down. Buyers are looking at more properties than they ever have in the past and are slow to actually make an offer. They have a lot of inventory to look at. Sellers are starting to adjust to the new market reality and are pricing accordingly. The stock market has been quite healthy lately and those Sellers who won't be immediately buying back into the real estate market are anxious to put their money to work there. Those Sellers who will be buying see reduced prices and are anxious to move into their new home. The only people who are dissatisfied are those that are comparing prices with what their neighbor sold for 2 or 3 years ago.
If you're a Seller, ask yourself if you want to be counted in the "Sold" statistics or the "on market" figures. Then call your Broker and ask for an updated market analysis using recent sold comparables. Remember what you were trying to accomplish when you put your home on the market. Then take the action that will allow you to accomplish your goal.
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