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Something Inside of Us Sleeps, The Sleeper Must Awaken

These Maine towns are nevertheless hotspots for holiday residences

Maine’s best trip spots, including Bethel and Rangeley, are seeing strong demand for second households, bucking a nationwide pattern exhibiting a dramatic drop in buys.

The true estate website Redfin found a lot more than a 50 per cent drop in people seeking to purchase next homes throughout the place in comparison with pre-pandemic levels, pushed down by higher interest costs.

But that isn’t the circumstance in Maine’s family vacation places, which are observing far more desire than provide of second households and ongoing significant selling prices. The state became a harmless haven for out-of-point out purchasers all through the COVID-19 pandemic. Desire for next residences has not abated, authentic estate brokers stated, with far more Mainers also purchasing residence in childhood trip spots.

Rangeley, a bucolic western Maine city of 1,200 in Franklin County, saw a “coronavirus boom” alongside with the 2020 sale of the Saddleback Mountain ski resort to Boston buyers who upgraded it. Sales keep on at a brisk pace, claimed Jamie Eastlack, co-owner of Morton & Furbish Serious Estate in Rangeley.

“In the earlier 12 months, we’ve observed a lot more new individuals occur listed here,” he reported. “The pandemic and Saddleback set Rangeley back again on the map.”