In Maine, $500K Buys You Way More Home in Bangor Than in Portland

Maine's real estate market is still kind of crazy.

My wife and I bought our current house about a year before the pandemic hit the states. At the time, it was the most expensive house we'd ever purchased. It wasn't out of our league, but it definitely still felt like a very "adult" purchase. But it's funny, even for what we paid, it pales in comparison to what we see around Maine these days.

In fact, we joke all the time that we couldn't afford our house now. And we also joke all the time that we're stuck here until our mortgage is paid off, because we couldn't afford a house at these new prices. But if you were getting ready to buy a house, you might have to have a look outside where you are, to get the most bang for your buck.

There's a pretty big difference between Northern Maine and Southern Maine.

And I don't just mean in all the cheesy ways... If the subject is housing, you could spend equal amounts in Bangor or Portland. There are plenty of $500K-ish house in the Bangor area. Portland too. But what you actually get for all that money is quite different. Just take these two listings off of Realtor.com.

The Portland spot is a condo on Pitt Street, listed by James Trask from Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate - The Masiello Group, is $500,000 even. It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo, coming in at just over 1,100sf. By apartment standards, that ain't bad. Half a million seems steep, but that's pretty standard these days. 

Would you leave Southern Maine for Bangor, for a waaaay bigger house?

There's a single-family home on Grove Street in Bangor, listed at $499,000 by Brian Sturgeon from Realty of Maine - Bangor, and like a lot of older Bangor homes, it's huge. It's nearly 4,000sf and sits on it's own quarter acre of land. You won't have neighbors in the next wall either.

Not to mention, it's 5 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. It's literally almost 4 of the Portland condo. So if location isn't an issue, why wouldn't you go where the ginormous house is? Maybe spread out and enjoy life a bit. That's not to say there's anything wrong with condo living, but it's crazy how big the differences are.

Anyhoo... Let's compare some photos of both spots and let the differences really sink in.