Deer Isle, Maine.
Typical home $403,367 (+2.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,339 (+172%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,268 +2%
- $394,100$403,367 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $99,560 +33%
- $303,807$403,367 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.
- Deer Isle$2,117
- 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 Deer Isle, ME rose 2.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Deer Isle, Hancock County, Maine
Deer Isle is a town of 2,194 people in Hancock County. Half its households earn more than $62,284 a year and half less, against $72,744 across Hancock County; 19% of its people live below the poverty line. 86% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 14% are rented. Unemployment in Hancock County was 2.8% in August 2026, and the county had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most residents work in farming, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Deer Isle is a small island town on the Maine coast, where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Incomes run below the county's, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line, though a four-year degree is fairly common among adults. Winters are cold and snowy, with January highs near freezing and lows well below it, while summers stay mild and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work in farming, forestry and mining, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in a range of other services. Across Hancock County, the largest workplaces include Maine Coast Memorial Hospital, Ellsworth Public Schools and The Talaria Company, a boat yard. The county's unemployment rate is low and about where it was a year ago. Commutes are fairly short, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away, Holbrook Island Sanctuary State Park is a protected area with room to walk, and the Benjamin River is close by as well. Farther afield, Acadia National Park is the best known national park in the region, and the Farnsworth Art Museum is a longer drive away for a day of art. Both are trips to plan rather than errands to squeeze in.
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- 1,052households
- 36%of adults have a degree
- 19%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 22%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hancock County had 23,626 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 77° and lows near 57°. About 72 inches of snow and 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Belfast weather station, 15 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Hancock County
- Maine Coast Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital405FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters379
- Ellsworth Public SchoolsSchool district312FTE
- Mount Desert Island HospitalCritical access hospital311FTE
- RSU 25 SchoolsSchool district268FTE
- The Talaria CompanyBoat yards241
- RSU 24 SchoolsSchool district213FTE
- HannafordGrocery stores200
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 31 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,350 people in all across the county; Deer Isle has two of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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 weatherRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Coastal floodingRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Hancock 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 Hancock County.
Deer Isle home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Deer Isle$403,367
- 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.
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.
- Deer Isle13
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Deer Isle address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Deer Isle — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.