Bangor, Maine.
Typical home $283,105 (+0.6% in a year), asking rent $1,509 (+3.6%). Bangor, ME metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$887 (+148%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,674 +1%
- $281,431$283,105 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $71,242 +34%
- $211,863$283,105 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Bangor$1,486
- Maine$2,162
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Bangor, ME rose 0.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Bangor, ME rose 3.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Bangor runs $553/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $651 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,062 a month against $1,509 rent: a $1,486 mortgage payment, plus $273 property tax and $303 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Bangor
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,062
- Renting$1,509
- Mortgage only$1,486
Property tax · $273/mo 1.16% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Penobscot County, ME
Insurance & upkeep · $303/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Bangor, Penobscot County, Maine
Bangor is a city of 31,753 people in Penobscot County. Half its households earn more than $59,942 a year and half less, against $66,356 across Penobscot County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 47% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 53% are rented. Unemployment in Bangor was 3.3% in August 2026, and Penobscot County had 0.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Bangor is a small city on the Penobscot River, and its residents are somewhat older than in many American places. More households here rent than own, and incomes run below the county's, while a good share of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are long, cold and very snowy, summers are warm, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, restaurants and hotels, and professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Bangor are Eastern Maine Medical Center, St. Joseph Hospital and Husson University. Commutes are short, and the unemployment rate is the same as it was a year earlier.
Things to do. Kenduskeag Stream and the University of Maine Museum of Art are both in or beside town, and the Maine Discovery Museum is there too. A short drive away, Pushaw Lake offers time on the water, and the Penobscot Experimental Forest is a protected area for walking.
Report a mistake
- 14,581households
- 35%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Penobscot County had 71,782 jobs in 2025, 0.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 28° and lows near 9°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 59°. About 75 inches of snow and 42 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Bangor International Airport weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bangor
- Eastern Maine Medical CenterGeneral hospital3,272FTE
- St Joseph HospitalGeneral hospital902FTE
- Husson UniversityUniversity or college645
- Bangor Public SchoolsSchool district583FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters517
- Acadia HospitalPsychiatric hospital483FTE
- GE Vernova - Gas Power BangorGas turbine generator set units manufacturing376
- Union StreetGeneral medical and surgical hospitals277
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 75 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,755 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Winter weatherVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bangor’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Penobscot County and the Bangor, ME metro.
Bangor home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bangor$283,105
- Maine$412,002
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Bangor listings, and the typical home goes pending in 29 days — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Bangor34.37%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Bangor29
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bangor124
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Bangor36
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Bangor$285,515
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Bangor97.97%
Zip codes with a Bangor address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bangor — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.