Windham ranks among hottest ZIP codes nationally for home sales
Aug. 14—Maine's hot real estate market hit national rankings Thursday when Realtor.com placed a major Portland suburb 15th among the hottest ZIP codes for home sales in the country.
The 04062 ZIP code covering most of Windham, a town of just over 18,000 residents on Sebago Lake, was the only Maine location to break the top 50 hottest ZIP codes in America. The real estate listing service ranked 42,000 ZIP codes by the number of unique visitors to each property on its website and how quickly homes sold from January to June.
The Cumberland County town is affordable compared with the rest of the greater Portland area while lying close to the major employment center and close to outdoors activities, George Ratiu, senior economist for Realtor.com, said. The median list price there is $395,000, up 12.9 percent from last year, and homes were listed on the market an average of 10 days.
"Windham sits squarely in the profile of what today's buyers are looking for and they get a lot more house for the money," he said.
Ratiu said close to 60 percent of home shoppers visiting Realtor.com who are looking in the Portland metropolitan area, which includes Windham, are from out of state. People living in New York, Boston or Washington, D.C., would see Windham as a positive quality of life change that is affordable, he said.
Mary Dugans, a real estate broker with Allied Real Estate in Windham, said about a third of her office's clients are from outside Maine. Her office sold more than 100 homes this year with only four active listings not under contract now.
"Part of the big draw to Windham is that it is in the heart of the lakes region," she said.
East Colorado Springs, Colorado, ranked first among the hottest ZIP codes. Peabody, Massachusetts, and Manchester, New Hampshire, were among the New England locations ranking in the top 10.
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