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Check in with this page from time to time to read news and commentary about the midcoast Maine real estate market and an analysis of the latest Maine Association of Realtors housing reports.
Our market is, as are all real estate markets, local by nature and driven by forces both common to other real estate markets, but also unique to this one. Here you may gain that broad and local perspective you may find valuable in your decision to buy or sell real estate in midcoast Maine.
Midcoast Maine Real Estate Market News
Wobbly Pyramid
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- Created on Friday, 06 February 2015 20:03
You don't have to pore over too much data to know that the Baby Boomer generation was huge and is now approaching and going into retirement. As they came into their own in the '70s a surge of consumption began that lasted throughout their working years culminating with the now infamous halt of real estate investment in 2005. The population pyramids show the generation of young adults now coming into their working years is quite a bit smaller. In other words, what for the boomers in the 1950's was a pyramid with a broad foundation, has now become a bit top-heavy. Younger Americans simply aren't there in great enough numbers to soak up the inventory of primary housing, let alone the secondary and vacation real estate investments of which the Boomers are now divesting themselves. This is true of other forms of consumption as well.
To exacerbate the problem, the past 20 years has seen a dramatic increase in college tuition. Many young people that, in another time might have been buying houses, commercial, and vacation real estate as their careers got under way, cannot afford to due to huge amounts of student loan debt. The problem of this negative impact on housing markets and wealth generation in the U.S. is discussed here in a white paper issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The intimation is that colleges may, by their declining cost/benefit ratios, be trending toward obsolescence.
Although some markets show signs of transaction and price improvements, midcoast Maine's real estate market only shows signs of transaction improvement. We are experiencing greater numbers of buyers than in recent years entering the market, willing to buy, but only at a price that is in keeping with the new economic conditions. Price pressure is still to the downside due to the major demographic shift and college debt burdens.
Baby Boomers In US Population 1970/1985 Baby Boomers in Population 2012
