Lee, Maine.
Typical home $187,642 (+3.0% in a year). Bangor, ME metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$619 (+170%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,497 +3%
- $182,145$187,642 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $52,161 +39%
- $135,481$187,642 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.
- Lee$985
- Maine$2,162
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Lee, ME rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Lee, Penobscot County, Maine
Lee is a town of 916 people in Penobscot County. Half its households earn more than $49,886 a year and half less, against $66,356 across Penobscot County; 20% of its people live below the poverty line. 97% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 3% are rented. Unemployment in Penobscot County was 3.4% 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 construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lee is a small rural town in Penobscot County, and nearly everyone who lives here owns their home. Household incomes run below the county's, and a larger share of residents live below the poverty line than in many places. Winters are cold and long, with January the coldest month and plenty of snow, while July brings warm days and the year is fairly wet.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in the building trades, in manufacturing and in shops. Commutes tend to be long, so a good number of people drive some distance to their jobs, and some work from home. Across Penobscot County, some of the largest workplaces are Eastern Maine Medical Center, the University of Maine and Husson University.
Things to do. The area is mostly woods and water, with several rivers within reach, including the West Branch Penobscot River and the Mattawamkeag River. Baskahegan Lake and Cedar Lake are lakes to visit, and Howland Forest is a protected area for walking. All of these are a longer drive away.
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- 337households
- 14%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 35 mintypical commute
- 12%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 26° and lows near 3°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 59°. About 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lincoln Sanitary District/wtp weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Penobscot County
- Eastern Maine Medical CenterGeneral hospital3,272FTE
- University of MaineUniversity or college2,590
- St Joseph HospitalGeneral hospital902FTE
- Husson UniversityUniversity or college645
- Bangor Public SchoolsSchool district583FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters517
- RSU 19 SchoolsSchool district507FTE
- Acadia HospitalPsychiatric hospital483FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 174 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 18,783 people in all across the county; Lee has one of its own. 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 stormsVery high
- LightningRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Penobscot 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 Penobscot County and the Bangor, ME metro.
Lee home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lee$187,642
- 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.
- Lee14
Zip codes with a Lee address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lee — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.