Maine home sales continued to buck national trends last month, with both volume and prices climbing.

Nationally, sales of existing single-family homes fell 6.7 percent from the same month a year ago, but in Maine the volume of November sales rose almost 3 percent, according to a release from the Maine Association of Realtors.

November home sales Volume increase

Maine: 3 percent

U.S.: – 6.6 percent Price increase

Maine: 9.5 percent

U.S.: 5 percent

The median sale price in Maine also rose, increasing 9.5 percent to $219,000 compared with November 2017. Nationally, prices increased by only about half that amount – 5 percent – to a median of $260,500.

The robust activity puts Maine on track to beat its record in home sales set last year when 17,633 existing single-family homes sold, an increase of 0.7 percent from 2016. It was the third consecutive year that sales volume set a statewide record.

Through November, Maine’s residential real estate sales volume is 2.7 percent ahead of 2017.

“Overall, real estate continues to be a good investment, as steady long-term increased value is outpacing the volatility found in other investment options,” Kim Gleason, president of the Maine Association of Realtors and a broker/owner of McAllister Real Estate in Hallowell, said in a written statement. “Consumer confidence in home ownership remains high in Maine and owning a home is a good financial decision.”

In Cumberland County, volume was off by 1.5 percent from a year ago, but prices increased 8.8 percent, bringing the median sales price to $304,000.

Sales in York County also were down, by 5 percent, but prices rose to a median of $282,000, up 4.5 percent.

The Northeast experienced a 2.6 percent decrease in November sales compared with a year earlier and a 6.5 percent rise in the median sales price, to $291,400.

In many areas, higher mortgage rates have caused sales over the past 12 months to plunge at the steepest pace since May 2011, when the real estate sector was still in the grips of the housing bust. The average 30-year mortgage rate was 4.63 percent last week, up from 3.93 percent a year ago.

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