Maine Ranks Among the Top States in the Nation for Home Ownership

This all seems odd considering there's such a housing shortage...

If you go anywhere on social media, half of what you read usually seems to revolve around people complaining about not being able to find suitable housing. It ranges from people just trying to find something, to other people lamenting about being evicted from their homes because the landlord wants to raise the rent too much.

Read More: Can Maine Folks Buy a House with Less than a Six Figure Income?

But the other thing you hear a lot, is about the shortage of inventory when looking for homes. MaineBiz says we need almost 90,000 new homes over the next several years just to keep with current demand. Now all that said, it brings us to an interesting point... Mainers own their homes more than almost anywhere in the US.

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Almost 75% of Mainers own their home. But is that a good thing?

Or condo, or whatever. The point is, most of us are homeowners. Now, buying a house in Maine 5 years ago was almost a cinch. There was a decent amount of inventory, and things moved back and forth fairly fluidly. Home prices were almost half of what they are now. These days, it looks almost impossible to get a house at a fair price in Maine.

So probably a lot of Mainers are just staying put. But nationwide, many people either aren't buying or can't afford it. In New York and California, only close to half of each state, are homeowners. Mostly because of the insane price of homes. New England in general are right close to us. The exception being Massachusetts, according to Newsweek. For pretty much the same reasons as CA and NY.

I literally couldn't afford my own house, if I had to buy it right now.

And this may be why ownership is so high, and inventory is so low. A lot of Mainers may just see the logic in keeping their lower interest rates, and lower mortgage payments. If I bought my house right now, my monthly payment would probably be $400 - $500 higher than it is, with current rates and sale prices.

Read More: Is the Mall in Bangor, ME Finally Getting Some Real, New Housing?

So while I suppose it's cool we're a great bunch of homeowners, we're going to need to do something about getting more Mainers into houses they can afford. But while there's still high inflation rates, and corporations who are never going to look backward on cost of goods, we may as well embrace the new norm.