Compare Maine and Portland, Maine · readings as of November 10, 2026
Maine vs Portland
Portland rents for $2,399 a month (Zillow, September 2026); Maine has no current rent reading, and unemployment is 3.3% against 2.7% (BLS, September 2026). Among locals who answered, 6 of 12 in Maine would move there again, against 2 of 2 in Portland.
By The Honest Local · the same public series for both places, side by side · locals’ verdicts from each thread
The numbers source and period under each reading; the better reading is marked
Maine
Portland
Median rent
no reading
$2,399 /mo
Listing price
$449,000
$600,000
Typical home value
$412,002
$554,454
Unemployment
3.3%
2.7%
Cost of living, US = 100
114.0
114.0
Violent crime, per 100k
95
251
Property crime, per 100k
961
1943
Regular gas
$4.16
$4.15
Air right now
no reading
AQI 24
Temperature right now
no reading
44°F
Net domestic migration, latest year
+7,406
no reading
Income tax
5.8% to 7.15%, plus 2% surcharge over $1M from tax year 2026 (9.15%)
not in the guide yet
Sales tax
5.5%, no local
not in the guide yet
Property tax
~0.98% effective / ~$1,500 per yr
not in the guide yet
How to read this
Both columns come from the same public series read on the same day, so the comparison is fair even where the numbers are imperfect. Rent is Zillow’s observed rent index for the metro. Listing price is realtor.com’s median via FRED. Unemployment is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ metro rate for the latest month. Crime is the FBI’s latest full year: a city reads its own police department and a state reads the FBI’s state summary. A state whose FBI file covers under 90% of its residents, or a city whose department’s file falls far short of its own count, shows no reading rather than a rate that reads safer than it is. Taxes come from each guide’s sourced figures and are missing where a guide hasn’t been refreshed yet.
The verdict line at the top is written from these readings by a template, not by a model, and it changes only when the readings do.
Missing here. median rent, air right now, temperature right now, net domestic migration, income tax, sales tax, property tax. We leave a gap rather than estimate.
income tax: Maine Revenue Services 2026; supplemental budget Apr 2026 · 2026-09-04
sales tax: Tax Foundation 2026 · 2026-09-04
property tax: Tax Foundation 2026 / MoneyGeek-Insure.com 2026 · 2026-09-04
Compare pages are built from the tape and each place’s sourced guide figures and refreshed nightly. Pairs people actually search for are indexed; the rest are served but not indexed.
