What the spate of home price cuts says about Maine’s housing market

A growing number of price cuts on homes for sale across Maine signal the state’s housing market is shifting in buyers’ favor after years of benefiting sellers, real estate agents say. 

For the last several weeks, the number of homes for sale in Maine has risen to reach pre-pandemic levels for the first time in years, but lagging demand is causing homes to sit on the market for days or weeks. 

When this happens, real estate agents will typically use price reductions as a way to jump-start interest, which could lead to showings and offers, said Doug Burpee, an agent at Buckport-based Two Rivers Realty. 

While there are still plenty of people looking to buy, especially in southern and coastal Maine, the state’s housing market is showing signs of flipping from a seller’s to a buyer’s market, falling in line with a nationwide shift. 

The trend of lowering prices and houses being available for longer suggests the frenzied housing market Maine experienced during and immediately after the pandemic has ebbed. This could lead to it becoming easier to buy homes in Maine. 

A “seller’s market” means there are more people looking to buy properties in an area than listings available. This high demand and low supply favors sellers, as it often leads to higher prices and quick sales. 

Conversely, a “buyer’s market” happens when the quantity of available properties outweighs the number of people looking to buy. A large supply with low demand benefits buyers, as the situation can lead to lower prices and more favorable terms for buyers. 

In Burpee’s experience, a home’s price needs to lower by at least $10,000 in order to spark any new interest in the property. Cuts of $1,000 or $2,000 are typically done to bring a listing to the top of real estate websites, such as Zillow or Realtor.com, he said. 

“The worst thing to do is drop the price a little bit at a time,” said Harrison Wolfington, a broker at Laflin & Wolfington Home Systems in Augusta. “You want to actually impact change and get a result. If I have a $500,000 listing, a $5,000 price drop isn’t gonna do much, but a $10,000 drop on a $250,000 might make a big difference.” 

Maine homes are sitting on the market for an average of 23 days before selling, Burpee said, which is far longer than the three days or fewer that homes would be available for during the height of the pandemic. 

“A home would come on the market and have a wave of people who were so worried they were going to miss their chance that they were submitting sight unseen offers with escalation addendums, which allows them to have a chance to revise as higher offers come in,” Burpee said. “It was a feeding frenzy.” 

Wolfington said he purposefully slowed down the buying process when a home hit the market during the pandemic. This was done to ensure hopeful buyers had the opportunity to submit offers and ensured sellers could take advantage of the best possible offer. 

Cuts can also be a sign that a home was overpriced when it was first listed. This could be caused by sellers believing the housing market is as “red hot” as it was during the pandemic when in reality “the market has softened,” Wolfington said. 

“I think some sellers do still believe that we are in a true COVID-era type of housing crunch, and while I do still think the housing crunch is very much there, it’s nothing like it was four years ago,” Burpee said. 

In September 2025, properties in Maine sold for 95% of their original asking price whereas the selling price of homes in June 2023 were 101% of their initial asking price, according to data from Wolfington. 

Burpee said rising tax revaluations could also lead sellers to price their homes higher than they would otherwise, but those numbers don’t necessarily match the current market. 

“In their minds, ‘My tax valuation went up 25% so I should be able to get more than what I expected to before,’” Burpee said. “That’s not always necessarily the case.” 

While sellers might not sell their homes for as much as they could’ve years ago, Wolfington said it’s important to remember that home values in Maine have appreciated 72% in the last five years. This puts Maine homeowners in a better position than sellers in many other parts of the country. 

“These home sellers are still holding a winning lottery ticket, but maybe instead of being a $10,000 winner, now it’s a $9,500 winner,” Wolfington said.