Benton, Maine.
Typical home $266,046 (-0.4% in a year). Augusta-Waterville, ME metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$800 (+134%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,048 -0%
- $267,094$266,046 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $54,334 +26%
- $211,712$266,046 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.
- Benton$1,396
- Maine$2,162
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Benton, ME fell 0.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Benton, Kennebec County, Maine
Benton is a town of 2,715 people in Kennebec County. Half its households earn more than $61,437 a year and half less, against $69,077 across Kennebec County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 84% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 16% are rented. Unemployment in Kennebec County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Benton is a small town in Kennebec County, and most homes in it are lived in by their owners, a larger share than is usual across the country. Household incomes run below the county's, and a four-year degree is held by fewer adults than not. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm without being hot.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, the building trades and transport and warehousing also common. Across Kennebec County, the largest workplaces include Mainegeneral Medical Center, Colby College and Central Maine Power Company. The typical commute is moderate, and only a small number of people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away are the Sebasticook River and Unity Pond, for time on the water, and Fort Halifax, a historic fort. For a day indoors, the Colby College Museum of Art is a museum a short drive off. Eaton Mountain, a ski area, is a longer drive away.
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- 1,135households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kennebec County had 62,270 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 43 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Waterville Trtmt Plt weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kennebec County
- Mainegeneral Medical CenterGeneral hospital3,267FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs1,371
- Colby CollegeUniversity or college891
- Huhtamaki WatervilleFood containers made from molded pulp575
- Maine Drilling and BlastingBlasting, construction site575
- Central Maine Power CompanyDistribution of electric power515
- RSU 18 SchoolsSchool district498FTE
- University of Maine at AugustaUniversity or college481
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 110 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 15,227 people in all across the county; Benton has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026), 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 stormsVery high
- LightningRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Kennebec County, 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 Kennebec County and the Augusta-Waterville, ME metro.
Benton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Benton$266,046
- Maine$412,002
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Benton11
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Benton4
Zip codes with a Benton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Benton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.