Brewer Only Northern Maine Location On ‘Maine’s Hottest Towns List of 2020′

The hottest cities and towns of Maine have been named in a yearly report from Maine Life Real Estate, indicating where the most home sales were for 2020.  Some cities and towns that you would expect to be on the list were there but one outlier caught our attention up here in Northern Maine, Brewer.

In an annual list created by Maine Life Real Estate, the single-family home sales were  analyzed throughout the state and this year's list is all about luxury home buying, waterfront properties and moving as a response to the pandemic.

Interestingly, the report indicated that home buying was already increasing by out-of-staters before the start of the pandemic.  But, it does seem the trend got even trendier with home sales creating a record year for the State of Maine.

It's not the first time us Northerner's have been surprised by the findings on this list.  In fact, in 2019, Hampden was #1 on the list.

Here's how the list was created, the calculations used via the Maine Life Real Estate post from their website:

To determine the list, Maine Life gathers data from the multiple listing service, operated by Maine Real Estate Information Services Inc., and calculates which Maine municipalities had the largest increase in home and condo sales, including both existing homes and new construction. The list only looks at municipalities with a volume of 130 units or higher.

Brewer was labeled as an outlier in this list because of the extreme location difference of the other 'hot towns' on the list located in Southern Maine.  Brewer was the only town/city listed on this hot list in Northern Maine.

Here's what towns made the 'Hottest towns of 2020' list:

1. Kennebunkport
2. Kittery
3. Falmouth
4. Rockland
5. Wells
6. Brewer
7. Auburn
8. Gray
9. Old Orchard Beach
10. Lisbon

As you can see, York and Cumberland county was a large contributor to for 2020 sales, with 6 of the 10 towns listed lying in just those two counties.  York and Cumberland brought in 40% of home sales for Maine last year.

It is also observed in the report that 9 out of the 10 towns on the list were also located on large rivers or along the coast.

Comparing this year's list to last years list you can see a difference on year, and maybe a pandemic, can make.  Note that Kittery is the only town on both the 2019 list and the 2020 list: