The 10 Cheapest Places To Live In Maine For 2022

The 10 Cheapest Places To Live In Maine For 2022

We kick our tour of the most affordable places to live in Maine with Caribou, the most northeastern city in America. In Caribou, you’ll find the first least expensive homes in Maine, at a median price of $93,100. What’s more, residents of Caribou spend the smallest percentage of their income on homes. If you just want to make sure you can brave the cold and snow before settling down here, rent in Caribou goes for about $564/month.

Thrill-seekers and beer-drinkers alike will find something to love in Caribou, because it’s one of the best places for snowmobiling in Maine as well as the home of Northern Maine Brewing Company. Small heads up for those considering Caribou, though; it’s the most conservative place in Maine.

The easternmost city in America, Eastport, ranks as the second cheapest city to live in Maine. Eastport consists entirely of islands, so you if you want something different than fishing Maine’s rivers and lakes, the deep-sea fishing on offer in Eastport is sure to be a nice change of pace. Speaking of the sea, Eastport celebrates both the Salmon and Seafood Festival and the Pirate Festival every year, so we hope you’re ready to party before moving here. Eastport has the third least expensive homes for sale in Maine, with a median price of $108,000. For both renters and buyers, Eastport is in the top ten statewide for housing to income ratio.

If you’re looking for the absolute lowest home prices in Maine, look no further than Calais. Homes in Calais go for a measly $94,400, so if you’re coming here with some savings, you’ll have the mortgage paid off in no time flat. Calais residents spend the fourth smallest proportion of their income on homes statewide. On the downside, Calais ranks as the least affordable place to rent on this list. As for cheap entertainment options in Calais, taking a white-water canoe trip to St. Croix Island always makes for a good day out.

We’re taking a short drive south from Caribou to arrive at the fourth cheapest place to call home in Maine, Presque Isle, the commercial center of Aroostook County. Buying a home in Presque Isle will set you back about $113,900, the fourth lowest price in Maine. As far as home price to income ratio goes, Presque Isle is the second best in the state. Presque Isle is home to Arastook State Park, so you’ll never have to go far to get away from it all.

Gardiner is popular with tourists, and it’s not hard to see why. This Augusta suburb is known for its old architecture and distinct culture. It doesn’t matter what you’re into — shopping in Gardiner’s historic downtown, catching a show at Johnson Hall, or a fireworks display at Waterfront Park — Gardiner has something for everyone. If you come as a tourist and decide you want to try living in Gardiner for a bit, rent will set you back about $748/month. It probably won’t take you long to fall in love with the city and decide to settle down here permanently. If you do decide to buy, the median home price in Gardiner is $149,800.

We’re finishing our list of cheapest places to live in Maine in Ellsworth, a happening little city that’s on the rise. We named Ellsworth one of the best places to live in Maine thanks to its impressive schools, safe streets, and solid markets for jobs and homes. Affordable rent is Ellsworth’s primary distinction; paying $805/month on a median income of $60,718 gives Ellsworth the second best rent to income ratio in Maine. If you’re planning on moving to Ellsworth, you may want to expedite the process, because the secrets out on Ellsworth and it’s one of the fastest growing cities in Maine.

Located on the coast about 35 miles south of Bangor, Belfast ranks as the seventh most affordable place to live in Maine. Wandering the seaside villages of Belfast is a favorite among tourists, especially the Harborwalk that goes along Belfast’s downtown coast. So is visiting some seriously impressive farmer’s markets. All this activity is part of why we named Belfast one of the best family cities in Maine. While Belfast’s median home price of $184,100 is the highest you’ll see on this list, so is the city’s median income of $62,720. Combining those stats gives Belfast the seventh best home price to income ratio in the state. The news is even better for renters, who pay $874/month and enjoy spending the fourth smallest percentage of their income on rent statewide.

Waterville is a city in Kennebec County of the U.S. state of Maine, United States, on the west bank of the Kennebec River. Home to Colby College and Thomas College, the population was 15,722 at the 2010 census. Waterville is also the latter of the cities which make up the Augusta-Waterville, ME Micropolitan Statistical Area.

You’d never believe you were living in one of the states with the most expensive rent in America if you’re lucky enough to call Old Town your home. Not when you’re paying $782/month for an apartment, less than half the average rent in Maine. Old Town also has the sixth cheapest homes for sale in Maine, and is in the top ten statewide for home price to income ratio.

Old Town is a suburb of Bangor.

Bangor is a city along the Penobscot River in the U.S. state of Maine. The city proper has a population of 33,039, while the Bangor metropolitan area has a population of 153,746. Bangor is known as the “Queen City” of Maine.

Cheapest Places To Live In Maine FAQs

What county in Maine has the lowest cost of living?

The county in Maine with the lowest cost of living is Cumberland County. The average living wage in Cumberland County is $102,589 according to MIT data. Cumberland County has the lowest cost of living because it has relatively less expensive childcare and housing costs compared to Maine as a whole. Childcare costs $19,660 a year in Cumberland County for two children compared to the Maine average of $16,757. Housing costs, defined as a blend of the average rent and average mortgage payment, are $17,631 per year in Cumberland County compared to $12,883 on average in Maine.

What is the cost of living in Maine?

The cost of living in Maine is 4.6% higher than the US average. According to MIT, the required living wage for a family of four with two working parents in Maine is $93,871 vs the national average for a family of four with two working parents of $89,744. The median income of a Maine household is $59,489.

What is the cheapest housing market in Maine?

The cheapest housing market in Maine is Caribou. The average home value in Caribou is $93,100, the lowest in the state. The average home value in Maine is $198,000, almost 2.1 times higher than Caribou.

Methodology: How We Determined The Most Affordable Places To Live In The Pine Tree State For 2022

The two most important things to think about when it comes to being able to afford if you can live comes down to:

1. How much do money do I make?
2. How much do I have spend to live there?

You need to understand your costs in the context of how much money you make.

For example, if the median household earns $100,000 and spends $40,000 on housing it’s actually cheaper to live there than a place with a median income of $50,000 and housing costs of $21,000. You might spend more on housing, but you have more money overall to play with.

With that example in mind, we derived several statistics from the latest Census American Community Survey 2016-2020 around incomes and costs. They are:

• Median Home Price / Median Income (lower is better)
• Median Income / Median Rent (Higher is better)
• Median Home Price

We added simply median home price because high home prices generally correlate with higher expenses for all costs related to homes (heating, electricity, etc).

You can then compare these metrics in each of the places in Maine to figure out which is the least expensive.

What you are left with is a “Cost of Living Index” by taking the average rank of each of these metrics for each city.

So we used that cost of living index in order to rank all of the 22 places in Maine that have more than 1,000 people.

The place with the lowest cost of living in Maine according to the data is Caribou. You can download the data here.