Maine home sales in April were flat, though median price edged upward

Peter Van Allen It's not the house that's for sale, but a 6,000-square-foot lot behind it, on the market for $249,000.

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Spring has brought a wave of new houses to the market, but inventory in Maine remains tight.

The median home price was $400,000 in April, up 4.4% from a year ago. But the number of homes changing hands was flat compared to a year ago, with 942 homes changing hands. That's a hair lower than 949 last year — when the median price was $383,000, according to the latest Maine Listings barometer released Thursday.

Listing activity is up, with an additional 600 homes on the market in April, up 19% from March, said Jeff Harris, 2025 president of the Maine Association of Realtors and a broker affiliated with Harris Real Estate in Farmington.

Cumberland County, which includes the greater Portland area, continues to be the most expensive home market. The median home price in April was $560,000, up 3.04% from $543,500 a year earlier.

The second-most expensive market, York County, got a bit cheaper in April, with a median price of $479,000, down 4.2% from $500,000 in April 2024.

Aroostook and Washington counties remained the most affordable areas. The County had a median home price of $140,000 in April, down 11.52%, while the Downeast county was $198,000, down 12.39%.

The biggest gain in price was in Hancock County, home of Acadia National Park, where the median price surged 11.97% to $397,500, Maine Listings reported.

Regional and national numbers

Across the Northeast, sales were flat in April, though the median sales price surged 6.3% to $487,400, according to the National Association of Realtors.

For the U.S., sales declined by 1.4%, while the median sales price edged up 1.7% to $418,000.

Reports from brokers

Recent reports from brokers indicate a mixed market.

Home prices, concerns about the economy and the cost of borrowing money are convincing some prospective buyers to rethink their budgets, Scarborough-based 207 Realty Partners said this week in its newsletter. Houses are spending more time on the market than in recent years.

In Portland, the median sales price was $570,000 in April, down from $700,000 in April 2024, Benchmark Real Estate said in its monthly report. But the number of sales was up from a year earlier — 36, versus 31 from a year ago. And houses are not sitting on the market, selling on average in six days, same as a year ago.

“This isn’t 2008. We’re not seeing a collapse, we’re seeing a balancing,” Tom Landry of Benchmark Real Estate said in the report. “Inventory is up, prices are down, but demand is holding steady. That’s a textbook correction.”