This past Sunday's Washington Post had the best article (written by Dina ElBoghdady) that I have read on the state of the current housing market. With prices falling and inventory high, buyers have had a major advantage over the past few years. This continues today. Very few offers come in that are not below the asking price. If sellers are interested in moving on, then they have to listen to the offer and engage the buyer. Often, this is a very painful process for the sellers.
So, now we have sellers who think their house is worth one price and buyers who believe that it is worth considerably less. And there appears to be buyers who think that if they wait a little longer, that the prices will be coming down. After all, it doesn't seem that the mortgage rates will be going up soon. In fact, they keep dropping lower.
This article concentrates on the Washington, DC/Northern Virginia marketplace, but I think that all of the factors are in play in western Maine. "In Struggling Housing Market, Buyers and Sellers are Out of Sync"