Brunswick, Maine.
Typical home $496,993 (+2.5% in a year), asking rent $2,125 (+1.9%). Portland-South Portland, ME metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,532 (+142%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $12,254 +3%
- $484,739$496,993 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $111,727 +29%
- $385,266$496,993 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.
- Brunswick$2,609
- Maine$2,162
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Brunswick, ME rose 2.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Brunswick, ME rose 1.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Brunswick runs $1,447/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,594 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,573 a month against $2,125 rent: a $2,609 mortgage payment, plus $432 property tax and $532 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Brunswick
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$3,573
- Renting$2,125
- Mortgage only$2,609
Property tax · $432/mo 1.04% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Cumberland County, ME
Insurance & upkeep · $532/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 Brunswick, Cumberland County, Maine
Brunswick, in Cumberland County, had 17,033 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $70,722 a year and half less, against $95,677 across Cumberland County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 66% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 34% are rented. Unemployment in Cumberland County was 2.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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. Brunswick is a college town on the coast of Maine, and its residents are younger on the whole than in many New England towns. A large share of adults hold a four-year degree, and incomes run below the county's, while homes cost a good deal to buy or rent. Winters are cold and long, with snow through much of the season, and summers are mild and comfortable.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in restaurants and hotels, professional and business services, and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Brunswick are Brunswick Public Schools, Hannaford and Starc Systems. Most people have a fairly short commute, and a good number work from home.
Things to do. Several museums sit in or beside town, including the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and the Peary–MacMillan Arctic Museum. Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away, and so is the Maine Maritime Museum. Brunswick Falls, a waterfall, is in or beside town.
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- 7,107households
- 51%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 18%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cumberland County had 194,746 jobs in 2025, 1.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 59°. About 67 inches of snow and 50 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Brunswick Nas weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Brunswick
- Brunswick Public SchoolsSchool district611FTE
- HannafordGrocery stores196
- Starc SystemsWarehouses, prefabricated metal, manufacturing116
- Modern Pest ServicesPest control services97
- Shaws SupermarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores95
- Hammond Lumber Company - BrunswickBuilding materials supply dealers53
- BrunswickMail and parcel delivery49
- Dead River CompanyFuel dealer49
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 12 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 831 people in all. School districts come 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
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Brunswick’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 Cumberland County and the Portland-South Portland, ME metro.
Brunswick home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Brunswick$496,993
- 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 5 Brunswick listings, and the typical home goes pending in 9 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.
- Brunswick18.81%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Brunswick9
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Brunswick65
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Brunswick29
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Brunswick$522,539
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Brunswick address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Brunswick — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.