Housing in Washington County continues to be out of reach for many in the area, as a shortage of inventory paired with high prices remains the dominating trend. According to the most recent data from MaineHousing, the county's housing affordability index held steady from the previous year at 0.65 -- being the lowest figure on record for the county. Other data points suggest an increase in second home ownership by out of area owners and a marked increase in median income as higher income households move in.
      "It feels discouraging at times," says Roseann Kierstead, a Perry resident who has been looking for a home with her husband over the past three years. "I have always wanted a space of my own. I want to have a house to call my own. A house would be the perfect representation of how hard we work." Kierstead, who graduated from Shead High School in 2015 and has had family in the area for generations, points to a number of barriers she and her husband have run into while looking for a home. While both of them work steady jobs today -- she as a special education teacher at an elementary school, her husband as a carpenter -- their financial history is one roadblock, owing to unpaid medical bills resulting from Kierstead's struggle with Crohn's disease. "It is very difficult to get a loan if you have unpaid collections," she says.
      The Kiersteads do qualify for Federal Housing Adminisration (FHA) loans, which are used mostly for first-time home buyers, "but the amount that we are potentially approved for will not get us a house meeting all of the FHA requirements," Kierstead says. "Houses that would meet the requirements are way out of our price range."
      To receive an FHA loan, the property in question must be assessed and inspected, with a goal of no major interior or exterior problems being present. If there are damaged or cracked surfaces, doors or windows in the home -- even if they are still operable and functioning -- it can be enough for a loan request to be denied. "I understand that the main reason for inspections is safety, which I think is great," Kierstead says. "I just wish there were affordable houses within budget that we could qualify for."
      With her husband's carpentry background and the couple's motivated attitude, they know they'd be able to make do with an older home and "make it our own" given the chance. "Unfortunately, after some time, the home-buying process does become discouraging," Kierstead says.
      Renting, too, is out of the question. "If we were to rent, our savings for a home would be gone, and we would be living paycheck to paycheck because of the astronomical cost of rent right now." For the Kiersteads, that means staying with family until things change. "We want something that we can hopefully call ours one day."

Looking at the numbers
      At 0.65, Washington County's housing affordability index indicates that households making the median income are not able to buy a home at the median price. As recently as 2021 the county maintained a healthy 1.0 index, showing how quickly the housing inventory was affected over the past few years.
      Median home prices jumped up last year from $219,000 to $232,000, though Charles Rudelitch, executive director of the Sunrise County Economic Council (SCEC), attributes the increase "almost entirely to inflation."
      The increase in median income -- from $46,399 in 2022 to $54,820 last year -- is also partly caused by inflation, Rudelitch says, but that doesn't account for the whole picture. "While I want to see a few more years of data to be sure this is real, I expect that higher-income households moving into the county has shifted the median point." Even with the increase, the median income is far lower than it needs to be, with MaineHousing estimating that an income of $83,893 would be needed to afford the median home price in the county.
      The number of homes sold dipped dramatically from 470 in 2022 to 359 last year, which Rudelitch attributes to "a possible decrease in inventory that would appeal to second-home buyers and the fact that many households in Washington County cannot afford to purchase a home at the current prices and interest rates."
      The data also reflect a decrease in the total number of households in the county from 14,326 to 13,684, which Tora Johnson, co director of the SCEC's Sustainable Prosperity Initiative, notes as another possible indicator of more people with second homes living in the county. "If the unit is only occupied by people whose primary residence is elsewhere, the unit is classified as 'vacant' for the purposes of the census." Johnson adds the caveat that household data during non census years do not come from a direct count but are instead an estimate based on trends.
      Altogether, the data paint a picture of the changes happening in the county -- changes that are leaving some families who have been in the area for generations without a place to call home.