Saco, Maine.
Typical home $521,694 (+1.0% in a year), asking rent $1,918 (+2.7%). Portland-South Portland, ME metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,593 (+139%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,347 +1%
- $516,347$521,694 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $124,251 +31%
- $397,443$521,694 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.
- Saco$2,738
- Maine$2,162
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Saco, ME rose 1.0% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Asking rents in Saco, ME rose 2.7% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Saco runs $1,795/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,812 in Mar 2025.
That is $3,713 a month against $1,918 rent: a $2,738 mortgage payment, plus $416 property tax and $559 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Saco
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$3,713
- Renting$1,918
- Mortgage only$2,738
Property tax · $416/mo 0.96% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for York County, ME
Insurance & upkeep · $559/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 Saco, York County, Maine
Saco is a city of 20,381 people in York County. Half its households earn more than $92,241 a year and half less, against $88,333 across York County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 73% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Saco was 2.7% in August 2026, and York County had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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. Saco is a small city on the southern Maine coast, with a population that skews somewhat older than the typical American community. Household incomes run a little above the county's, and most homes are lived in by their owners. A large share of adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold and snowy, with a good deal of rain and melted snow through the rest of the year, while July is warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, professional and business services, and restaurants and hotels. Among the largest workplaces in Saco are Saco Public Schools, the Hannaford grocery store and a seafood wholesaler, MSV/Ready Seafood. Unemployment is low and has edged up only slightly over the past year, and a fair number of people work from home.
Things to do. Funtown Splashtown USA and Palace Playland, both amusement parks, are in or beside town. A short drive away are Higgins Beach and Scarborough Marsh, a protected area, as well as the Seashore Trolley Museum. The Portland Museum of Art is a longer drive away.
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- 8,998households
- 44%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 19%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. York County had 79,603 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 32° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 61°. About 69 inches of snow and 48 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Portland International Jetport weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Saco
- Saco Public SchoolsSchool district416FTE
- MSV/Ready Seafood - SacoSeafoods, packaged frozen, merchant wholesalers268
- GD-OTS, Inc. Saco OperationsBarrels, gun, manufacturing250
- HannafordGrocery stores211
- Shaws SupermarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores150
- Seal Rock HealthcareSkilled nursing facilities144
- Funtown Splashtown USAAmusement parks135
- FedExCourier and express delivery services110
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 32 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,717 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Saco’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 York County and the Portland-South Portland, ME metro.
Saco home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Saco$521,694
- 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 Saco listings, and the typical home goes pending in 19 days — the market is heating up.
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.
- Saco21.95%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Saco70
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Saco24
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Saco$449,977
- United States$371,553
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Saco97.85%
Zip codes with a Saco address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Saco — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.