Even Maine’s cheapest town has seen housing prices soar

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Mexico was amid the most affordable sites to dwell in Maine in advance of the pandemic, with usual houses valued at $60,000. This yr, four houses there sold for additional than $300,000.

Even though the fascinating places in southern Maine like Cape Elizabeth and Portland have noticed the hottest marketplaces for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, rural communities like Mexico, which is just across the Androscoggin River from the mill city of Rumford, are also looking at homes offer like they by no means have right before.

The usual house in Mexico was worthy of $59,600, the cheapest for any group in Maine with 1,000 persons or extra, as of the most lately obtainable American Community Survey quantities from 2020. Most of the only communities that ended up underneath had been plantations and townships of much less than 100 individuals.

That valuation has risen since the pandemic commenced, as has the median product sales rate of a home on the marketplace. It was $60,000 in 2018, $65,000 in 2019, $77,000 in 2020 and $93,900 in 2021, in accordance to Redfin records of sold residences.

Mason Milligan, a 26-year-outdated welder, grew up in Rumford and lived in Maine all his life ahead of getting a two-bed room residence in Mexico in March. He made a decision to try out for it soon after staying outbid on one particular in Rumford, attracted to a sizable garage and a desire to depart more rural Andover.

Milligan claimed he was “not totally happy” with the $179,000 price tag for the residence, but observed that the industry was superior. That was the next priciest of the six two-bedrooms marketed in Mexico this year. He was ready to buy the dwelling with the assistance of a Federal Housing Administration mortgage.

The median product sales cost for two-bedroom residences in Mexico from 2018 to 2020 was $75,000. All round, the median product sales selling price so considerably in 2022 was $159,900, however that number is however considerably underneath prices in most of Maine.

Back in January, a four-bed room with about 100 acres became the most high-priced house sold in Mexico in the past five a long time, in accordance to Redfin knowledge. It went for $599,000 following 77 days on the industry. It was acquired by two folks who detailed their handle as a residence in Los Angeles.

The city is most recognised in Maine for its exceptional identify, which came from neighborhood sympathy for Mexico’s struggle for independence from Spain at the time of the town’s incorporation in 1818.