Both renters and homeowners are struggling mightily in Maine’s housing market.
A report released Thursday by the National Low Income Housing Coalition showed that sky-high demand for very low housing inventory here continues to push both rental and home prices out of reach for everyday Mainers.
Most homes affordable to the average Maine household are under contract within days of being listed. Nearly half of all renting households are at risk of being cost-burdened by housing, the coalition’s report found.
Here are four numbers showing just how dire the housing crisis is for everyday Mainers.
$26
It takes an hourly wage of $26 to afford to rent the average 2-bedroom home in Maine without spending more than 30 percent of one’s income on housing, according to Thursday’s National Low Income Housing Coalition report. That’s the threshold generally considered affordable.
But there is a mismatch because a typical worker here makes about $23 per hour, the report found. Thousands of Maine restaurant, childcare, retail workers, laborers, cleaners and health care aides workers far less than that.
For prospective homebuyers, a household would need to make at least $84,000 each year in order to afford the average value of a Maine home right now, according to Zillow. The average household income in Maine is actually around $69,500, according to census data, which could finance a home up to around $333,000 in value.
1.5
That’s the number of full-time jobs at Maine’s $14.15 hourly minimum wage someone would need to work to afford a “modest” 1-bedroom rental home at fair market rent here, according to the report. It would be a 59-hour work week. That would go up to 75 hours to afford a 2-bedroom home.
44 percent
That’s the share of Maine’s nearly 154,000 renting households earning less than half of the median income in their area, according to Thursday’s report.
Area median income varies greatly between areas of the state. It is $77,500 in the Lewiston area, $95,700 around Bangor and a whopping $127,500 in greater Portland. Higher housing costs in different areas accounts for some of the variance. In all, it means nearly half of renters in Maine are at serious risk of being cost-burdened by housing.
26th
We have been writing for years about how the housing crisis is slamming Mainers. Yet this is Maine’s middle-of-the-pack ranking (26th in the nation) in the report on how “out of reach” housing is to the average worker in every state.
It shows we’re pretty average in the national context. All other New England states are costlier than Maine, with Massachusetts landing at No. 2, Connecticut at No. 11, New Hampshire at No. 13, Rhode Island at No. 12 and Vermont at No. 19.
Maine is in this position partially because it has led New England in per-capita housing units permitted over the last few years. It remains in the middle of the pack because a lack of affordable housing has become a fact of American life.
