Portland, ME

A simple stroll along the Eastern Promenade in Portland will have you hooked. Incredible vistas of the surrounding islands and Casco Bay..."the Hill" as it is referred to by the local population is the place to be if you are looking for culture, high energy and high excitement. Within the Portland ME real estate market, the East End falls on the upper spectrum with 61 properties currently listed, 54 of them condos's of which most fall into the luxury variety with an average asking price is 394K contrastng sharply with the year to date average sales price os 297K.

For a rough overview on the East End Portland Maine real estate markets visit www.portlandmainehome.com.

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One of the greatest natural resources Portland Maine has to offer is the Back Cove. Walking/Running on the wonderful 3.5 mile trail that snakes around this tidal body of water just north of downtown is a great way to spend an hour. Scenic vistas of the city, smells of the ocean, people watching galore. As a result the Portland Maine Back Cove real estate market offers wonderful homes in spectacular, quiet neighborhoods. Portland ME homes with a view will run you 400K plus but a 3 bedroom cape within 1/2 a mile of the Back cove that needs a little TLC can certainly be found in the 200K range.

To find out more on this neighborhood or other area neighborhoods, please contact me at 207-650-5383, email: john@greentreemaine.com or visiting my Greater Portland Maine real estate home page.

Thanks for reading,

John

For the month ending October 31st 2008, 39 residential transactions took place in the Portland ME real estate markets.. The average price was 259K which was 3% off of a year priors average sales price of 267K but 13% hiehger than Septembers average sales price of 230K. In October 2007 56 transactions transpired and thus Portland Maine housing volume remains down 30% year over year and down 7 total transactions from 46 in September.

View more southern Maine real estate statistics here. please

At our website - MaineHomeConnection - we just updated our 2008 homes sales statistics through the first three quarters of 2008. Sales results are available for York and Cumberland Counties in total, as well as selected individual cities and towns. Details are available at the link Home Sales and individual City pages.

Although unit sales for both single-family homes and condos are down in virtually every town, pricing has not experienced the same dramatic decreases, which is encouraging for sellers.

For the month of September the median sales price for a single-family existing home was $177,750, down 6.5% from one year ago. Unit sales were down 9.7% compared to the same period of 2007.

Nationally, some good news was achieved in home sales as unit sales were up 3.8% in September. The National Association of Realtors also reported a national median sales price of $190,600, which represents an 8.6% decline over the past 12 months. Regionally, sales in the Northeast were 7.7% lower than a year ago. The regional median sales price was $246,800-a decrease of 5.4%.

The latest Case Shiller housing numbers are also out, updated through July 2008. The numbers continue to improve slightly, at least the rate of housing price declines is slowing. It's interesting to see Tampa, one of the hardest hit markets, show no change in prices in the latest report. And you'd never guess from Charlotte's consistent position as the least effected housing market that it's a center for banking and finance. The monthly readings provided by Case Shiller are a smoothed three month moving average. For more on what the Case Shiller index is, visit our recent newsletter or the article Case Shiller on our website.

In the Portland Maine real estate world it seems the multi unit market is even slower than the single family housing market although just yesterday I did call on 2 multi unit properties that are now UC, encouraging. Despite the significant drop in transaction levels the pricing has held up surprisingly well. Here is a recent snapshot of 2-4 unit buildings in the Maine multi unit market.

Inventory Ask Price Price/Unit
Current 97 351K 141K

Sold Avg Sold Price Price/Unit
Past 12 Months 79 342K 142K
2006 114 352K 141K
2005 156 352K 140K
2004 174 330K 129K