By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

After several years of soaring housing prices, sales figures indicate the hot local real estate market is easing back to a simmer.

“This is a good thing,” said Brenda Fontaine.

Fontaine heads the Fontaine Family real estate sales team that’s associated with ERA Worden Realty in Auburn.

A survey issued over the weekend by the Maine Real Estate Information System showed that 124 fewer homes changed hands in November 2005 compared to a year earlier. That represented a 9.82 percent sales dip.

Those that did sell, however, showed a bump in the median sales price. Statewide, that median reached $192,500, a 5.19 percent gain from the $183,000 median posted a year earlier.

In the tri-county area of central/western Maine, a disparity in prices was obvious, but Fontaine could explain much of it.

In Franklin County, the median sales price of a house jumped 28.70 percent in the year between November 2004 and 2005. The increase in dollars: from $115,000 to $148,000.

“Much of that is market price correction,” Fontaine said. That means that property values in Franklin County were catching up with properties elsewhere in rural Maine.

Sales in Franklin County plummeted by 27.45 percent during the same period, another factor that Fontaine said resulted in skewed price figures. The drop in sales indicated that fewer properties were available, and the lessened supply resulted in higher prices.

Practically the opposite was true in Oxford County, where sales rose nearly 12 percent, but prices only went up by 1.03 percent.

“Prices there caught up sooner,” Fontaine said Monday, and the demand wasn’t as great.

In Androscoggin County, prices edged up 9.48 percent to a median sales price of $158,750. Sales fell by 5.41 percent.

The price increase represents a continued demand for housing in the Lewiston-Auburn area, while the drop in sales reflected a tight inventory that’s beginning now to loosen.

She said L-A remains a much-desired location among buyers.

“People want the amenities available in the cities. They’re also concerned with being near schools so their kids can be active in sports and activities,” Fontaine said.

Now, “Prices are leveling off,” she said, “and we have more listings than we’ve had for a while.”

That means that buyers have more choices, and with prices stabilizing, it also means they’re better able to withstand interest rate hikes.

Fontaine said the combination of factors – slowing price gains, an increasing inventory of homes for sale and an edging up of mortgage interest rates – are merely what’s known as market corrections.

Kevin Robert, manager of the Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Saco and Kennebunk, agreed.

“This correction is a symptom of a healthy market and not a ‘bubble’ about to burst,” he said in a release touting the November sales figures. “Maine’s real estate, contrary to the constant ‘doom and gloom’ reports, is viable as an investment opportunity, not only financially, but also in quality of life.”

Housing sales

From Sept. 1 to Nov. 30, 2004 and 2005

County Median sales price ’04 MSP ’05 % change

Androscoggin $145,000 $158,750 9.48

Cumberland $235,000 $259,000 10.60

Franklin $115,000 $148,000 28.70

Oxford $145,000 $146,500 1.03

York $231,000 $253,900 9.91

(Source: Maine Real Estate Information System, Inc.)

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