Median Sales Price continues to rise in both Cumberland and York Counties to go along with decreases in New Listings for each. As we keep repeating each month, the rising prices are largely due to simple supply and demand economics. There simply aren't enough homes for buyers. As of March, there was a 6.5 million shortage of homes in the United States as a whole, and with many towns tightening their belts on development, we are hopeful that Maine's LD 2003 bill will help ease the pressure. The bill allows for many properties with single family dwellings to develop an additional one to three units with minimal restrictions. We have some clients taking advantage of this opportunity already, and hope this becomes more popular as time goes on in order to ease the crunch for buyers.
In the field, we're still seeing most reasonably priced homes gathering multiple offers, though it is dependent on price point and location. We expect this trend to continue through at least the summer, and envision the number of new listings to continue to decline compared to last year.
