PORTLAND, Maine — Single-family home sales rose in August, compared with last year, as the median price paid for those homes dipped to $178,000.
The total volume of home sales for the state’s busiest month for real estate transactions rose 3.3 percent from one year ago, bucking a national and regional decline in single-family home sales, according to a transaction tracking service maintained by the Maine Association of Realtors.
Home sales volumes have been on a steady rise, increasing for 18 straight months when compared with the same month one year prior. Median prices were on the rise from August 2012 to February, when they slipped for three months in a row.
“We have seen a consistent trend of unit volume increase and sales price decrease over the last few months,” Angelia Levesque, president of the Maine Association of Realtors, said in a statement Monday. “The good news is that buyers are out there and they are stepping up and purchasing.”
For the summer months, Somerset County showed the greatest increase in home sales volume, up to 150 from 121 transactions last year. That was coupled with a nearly 10 percent decrease in the median sales price, down about $10,000 to $96,250.
Home sales volume increased during the summer months of 2014 from the same period one year ago in all but Penobscot, Kennebec, Knox, Lincoln and Washington counties. Median sales prices for that period declined in all but Cumberland, Hancock, Kennebec, Oxford and Piscataquis counties.