A Portland-based real estate company is planning to develop more than 100 housing units near the Portland International Jetport that would marry condominiums and accessory dwellings to create what it says is the “new age starter home.”

Called Stroudwater Commons, the complex proposed by GreenMars Real Estate would include 90 one-, two- and three-bedroom condos split between nine buildings at 1877 Congress St. Eighteen of the condos would include an attached studio apartment that could be used for relatives in multigenerational households or as a rental for supplemental income.

Buying a multi-unit in Portland used to be a fairly accessible path to homeownership for someone working a steady, middle-income job – it’s how GreenMars founders Chris Marshall and Nate Green first broke into real estate. Their respective multi-units allowed them to build equity, with rent collected from tenants offsetting their mortgages while they saved up to buy another property and grow their portfolios.

But now that seems like a pipe dream for anyone making less than $250,000 a year, Marshall said.

Prices for buildings with two to four units have increased 64% in the last five years alone, according to Vitalius Real Estate Group.

The median sale price for a two-unit in Portland last year was $707,000, compared to $432,000 in 2019.

Green and Marshall hope Stroudwater Commons will help change that.

“Our mission is to create housing units that benefit people that are like we were 15 years ago,” Marshall said.

The 18 Stroudwater duplexes will be market rate while 20% of the remaining condos would be reserved for people making 80% of the area’s median income (about $68,000 for a single person) and 30% would be for people making 100% of the area median income (about $89,000 for a single person).

“We’re committed to housing that Maine people can afford,” said Green said.

The development is possible largely through the passage of L.D. 2003, sweeping legislation enacted in 2022 that makes accessory dwelling units legal on all single-family lots statewide. It also creates an automatic density bonus that allows developers to build 2.5 times the number of units allowed under local zoning if they make at least half of the units affordable.

It was not immediately clear if Stroudwater Commons would be the first new construction development to incorporate ADUs, but Marshall and Green said they haven’t heard of any similar projects.

“Without some of the new legislation, we wouldn’t be able to do something like this,” Marshall said. “The housing industry in general tends to be conservative from an innovative perspective. It can be scary. They’re big investments, (so) if it doesn’t go well it can cause a lot of problems.”

The condo-ADU combo gives the project a creative edge, but Marshall and Green said their goal is ultimately to increase access to homeownership, whether it’s through a duplex or a standalone condominium.

Homeownership is a ladder, Marshall said, and equity achieved through climbing that ladder is what helps families build wealth.

“But the bottom two or three rungs are missing,” he said. “Unless you are a handyman extraordinaire, you’re not going to be able to buy a starter home in coastal Maine or even 45 minutes outside of it.”

Many single-family homes are out of reach for most Mainers.

In Portland, where the median income is about $89,000 a year, an “affordable” single-family house by MaineHousing’s standards would cost about $250,000. But the average home sale price in Cumberland County last year was $530,000, which requires an annual salary of almost $187,000, according to the agency.

Housing prices have nearly doubled in the last five years. According to data from the Maine Association of Realtors, the median home price in 2019 was $200,000. In May, the median sale price was a record $398,000.

Meanwhile, mortgage rates have climbed from an average of 3.94% in 2019 to around 7% so far this year. The cost of home insurance has also climbed more than 14% in the last year and is expected to increase another 19% next year.

“People say prices have doubled, but if you think about prices as a mortgage payment, we’re way beyond that,” Green said. “It doesn’t matter if your wages are matching inflation, you’re getting priced out anyway.”

Marshall and Green said the least expensive homes would likely be below $300,000, though it largely depends on the housing market in the next few years.

Green and Marshall hope to make Stroudwater Commons feel less like a large development and more like a neighborhood of single-family homes, but with more parking. There are about 100 parking spaces planned.

The area is ideal, they said, because it’s close to public transportation and Portland’s desirable public trail system.

Green and Marshall plan to introduce the project to neighbors at a meeting Wednesday evening before submitting their application to the city.

GreenMars is the development company behind Wilbur’s Woods, a Brunswick development of 21 below-market rate, Scandinavian-style condominiums. Green and Marshall are also transforming three former Nasson College dormitories in Springvale into 83 one- and two-bedroom apartments.

They previously planned to rehab Portland’s iconic Time and Temperature Building and turn it into a hotel, restaurant, retail space and residential units. But GreenMars said logistically, the space was starting to drift too far into hospitality and it left the project to focus more on housing development.

“We got back to what we’re good at,” Marshall said.

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