Waterville, Maine.
Typical home $250,401 (+1.9% in a year), asking rent $1,342 (+5.9%). Augusta-Waterville, ME metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$836 (+175%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,707 +2%
- $245,694$250,401 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $77,926 +45%
- $172,475$250,401 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.
- Waterville$1,314
- Maine$2,162
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Waterville, ME rose 1.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Waterville, ME rose 5.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Waterville runs $469/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $547 in Feb 2025.
That is $1,811 a month against $1,342 rent: a $1,314 mortgage payment, plus $228 property tax and $268 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Waterville
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$1,811
- Renting$1,342
- Mortgage only$1,314
Property tax · $228/mo 1.09% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Kennebec County, ME
Insurance & upkeep · $268/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 Waterville, Kennebec County, Maine
Waterville is a city of 15,828 people in Kennebec County. Half its households earn more than $53,580 a year and half less, against $69,077 across Kennebec County; 21% of its people live below the poverty line. 49% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 51% are rented. Unemployment in Waterville was 3.7% in August 2026, and Kennebec County had 0.3% fewer 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. Waterville is a small city on the Kennebec River, with a younger population than many Maine towns, helped by the colleges in and around it. Incomes run below the county's, and more people here rent their homes than across Kennebec County as a whole. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are comfortably warm.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in professional and business services, or in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Colby College, Waterville Public Schools and Inland Hospital are among the largest workplaces in town. Commutes are short, and a fair number of people work from home.
Things to do. The Colby College Museum of Art and the Redington Museum are both in or beside town, along with the Waterville Opera House and City Hall, a theatre. For time outdoors, Messalonskee Lake and Stream is a short drive away, and Eaton Mountain, a ski area, is a longer drive.
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- 6,804households
- 31%of adults have a degree
- 21%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 17%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kennebec County had 62,270 jobs in 2025, 0.3% fewer 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, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Waterville
- Colby CollegeUniversity or college891
- Huhtamaki WatervilleFood containers made from molded pulp575
- Waterville Public SchoolsSchool district401FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters391
- Inland HospitalGeneral hospital346FTE
- Thomas CollegeUniversity or college208
- HannafordGrocery stores202
- DuramagCar bodies, kit, manufacturing175
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 20 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,408 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Waterville’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Kennebec County and the Augusta-Waterville, ME metro.
Waterville home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Waterville$250,401
- 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 3 Waterville listings — the market is cooling.
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.
- Waterville35.99%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Waterville63
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Waterville22
Zip codes with a Waterville address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Waterville — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.