Palermo, Maine.
Typical home $359,269 (-1.2% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,096 (+139%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $4,186 -1%
- $363,454$359,269 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $65,993 +23%
- $293,275$359,269 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.
- Palermo$1,886
- Maine$2,162
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Palermo, ME fell 1.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Palermo, Waldo County, Maine
Palermo is a town of 1,570 people in Waldo County. Half its households earn more than $89,095 a year and half less, against $72,782 across Waldo County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 91% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 9% are rented. Unemployment in Waldo County was 3.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Palermo is a small rural town in Waldo County, and nearly everyone who lives there owns their home. Household incomes run well above the county's, and fewer people live below the poverty line than you might expect for a country town. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs staying below freezing, while July brings warm days, and precipitation falls steadily through the year as rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, government and retail also employing many. Across Waldo County, some of the largest workplaces are Waldo County General Hospital, RSU 71 Schools and Mathews Brothers Company. Commutes are fairly long, and more people than you might guess work from home.
Things to do. Sheepscot Pond is a lake in or beside town, and Lake St. George State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away. China Lake, a reservoir, is also a short drive away. For a day out, the Farnsworth Art Museum is a longer drive away.
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- 657households
- 32%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 19%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Waldo County had 11,300 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more 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, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Waldo County
- Waldo County General HospitalCritical access hospital520FTE
- RSU 71 SchoolsSchool district368FTE
- Mathews Brothers CompanyWindows and window frames, vinyl, manufacturing297
- RSU 03/msad 03 SchoolsSchool district245FTE
- HannafordGrocery stores218
- Mowi USASeafood and seafood products manufacturing171
- Robbins LumberBeams, wood, made from logs or bolts145
- RSU 20 SchoolsSchool district139FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 22 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,113 people in all across the county; Palermo has none 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
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Waldo County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Waldo County.
Palermo home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Palermo$359,269
- Maine$412,002
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Palermo listings — 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.
- Palermo24.95%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Palermo20
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Palermo address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Palermo — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.