Guess How Many Houses There Are For Sale In Bangor Right Now?
I picked the best time ever to move.
I really did. It was the very end of 2018, and the housing market had pretty well bounced back from a decade earlier when the bottom fell out of the market. I lost my shirt on my old house in Westbrook because of that. But, in 2018, I made out like a bandit when I bout the house I live in now. And the market was nothing like right now.
When we were looking for houses in 2018, for some reason I remember this number very clearly, there were 32 houses. All in our price range. Beyond that, there were another couple dozen houses on either side. There was a great supply of houses to choose from, all reasonably priced.
And then came the pandemic...
We all know what happened after that. Covid hit, and people from out of state started wanting to leave their big cities in droves and come up to Maine. This initially put folks looking to sell their homes in the driver's seat. And then of course the entire market took off, and BOOM!
So how many houses do you think there are?
I came across this article in the BDN talking about Portland's situation, and it got me wondering what the housing inventory was like here, and if we were doing any better. And according to my Realtor.com app, there are only 8 actual turnkey homes in Bangor right now. There are several more "to-be-built" homes and new construction, but only 8 actual houses.
To be fair, that's just in the city of Bangor.
Obviously, you'd branch out if need be. Whether it's into Hampden or Hermon, or wherever, there are options. But then it comes back to price. If I tried to buy my house again right now judging comps online, I'd have to pay $50k - $70K more for this spot. That seems crazy to me. But hey, I'm just a big dumb DJ.
This whole thing will all settle down eventually, but it's crazy to watch from the outside. I'm glad to have bought when I did and can just enjoy the fruits of my timing. I love my house out in the woods. In fact, I think the backlot is calling me and the dog right now...