Best Places to Buy Rental Property in Maine (2026)

Cheap is not the same as high-yield in Maine. Bangor has the lowest median price on this list at $298,250 and ranks second; Brunswick, where a $413,750 home asks $2,400 a month, ranks first at 7.0 percent gross. One caution on the rent side: in Portland houses asked a median of $3,150 while the all-type median was $2,600. For a house, compare house rents with house sale prices; substituting the house rent into a ratio whose denominator is a mixed sale median only makes the number look better, not more representative. Portland, the busiest market on the list with about 76 closings a month, sits sixth of 8 at 5.3 percent. Measured against the whole state, these are expensive markets: a median of $515,750 here against $425,000 statewide.

The ranking

Gross yield here is an asking rental yield screen: twelve times the median asking rent over the median closed price, before taxes, insurance, vacancy, management or repairs. Sales use municipal boundaries. Rental listings use the associated city name and may cover a wider postal area. The ratio therefore compares related, but not perfectly matched, market samples, and a home bought at the median price does not necessarily earn the median rent. Confirmed-close medians appear where at least 30 confirmed lease closes were recorded in the window.

City by city

1. Brunswick, 7.0 percent gross

Read Brunswick's $2,400 rent as an apartment figure: 60 percent of its listings are apartments or condos, and the house median is $2,898. Homes in Brunswick closed at a median of $413,750 over the last twelve months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $2,400, a gross yield of 7.0 percent. Houses there closed at about $282 per square foot. The Brunswick market page carries the monthly figures.

2. Bangor, 6.7 percent gross

Bangor's rental sample is 73 percent apartments and condos while its sales are mostly houses, so the $1,675 asking median understates what a house rents for there: houses asked $1,962. At $298,250 to buy and $1,675 a month to rent, Bangor yields 6.7 percent gross on 244 tracked closings. The Bangor market page carries the monthly figures.

3. Lewiston, 6.4 percent gross

Lewiston's rental sample is 89 percent apartments and condos while its sales are mostly houses, so the $1,700 asking median understates what a house rents for there. Homes in Lewiston closed at a median of $320,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,700, a gross yield of 6.4 percent. Houses there closed at about $185 per square foot. See the Lewiston page for the property mix and the price band.

4. South Portland, 6.1 percent gross

South Portland's rental sample is 64 percent apartments and condos while its sales are mostly houses, so the $2,700 asking median understates what a house rents for there: houses asked $3,350. The numbers: $531,500 median closed price across 202 closings, $2,700 median asking rent across 201 listings, 6.1 percent gross. The South Portland market page carries the monthly figures.

5. Westbrook, 5.8 percent gross

Read Westbrook's $2,425 rent as an apartment figure: 78 percent of its listings are apartments or condos. At $500,000 to buy and $2,425 a month to rent, Westbrook yields 5.8 percent gross on 181 tracked closings. The Westbrook market page carries the monthly figures.

6. Portland, 5.3 percent gross

Read Portland's $2,600 rent as an apartment figure: 77 percent of its listings are apartments or condos, and the house median is $3,150. At $587,000 to buy and $2,600 a month to rent, Portland yields 5.3 percent gross on 459 tracked closings. Houses there closed at about $397 per square foot. Full detail is on the Portland market page.

7. Wells, 4.9 percent gross

At $578,725 to buy and $2,350 a month to rent, Wells yields 4.9 percent gross on 248 tracked closings. See the Wells page for the property mix and the price band.

8. Scarborough, 4.5 percent gross

Homes in Scarborough closed at a median of $715,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $2,685, a gross yield of 4.5 percent. See the Scarborough page for the property mix and the price band.

How this ranking is built

• •Cities: every Maine city where Resideline tracked at least 100 closings inside the municipal boundary in its reporting window (six or twelve months) and at least 50 rental listings under the city's name since September 10, 2025: 8 cities qualify.
• •Prices: the median price homes closed at inside the city limits, from Resideline's tracked closings; the state comparison uses the statewide median of $425,000 across 9,541 closings.
• •Rents: the median advertised rent on rental listings Resideline tracked in the last twelve months, all property types, measured on the listings that carry the city's name (a postal footprint, wider than the city line in some places).
• •Confirmed-close medians: Observed rent blends two kinds of record: confirmed lease closes extracted from property records, and the final asking rent on listings that left Resideline tracking without a recorded close. Where a city has at least 30 confirmed closes in the window, their median is printed beside the asking figure; in the last twelve months about a quarter of Resideline's close episodes are confirmed closes. The asking and confirmed-close samples are separate, not paired, so a difference between their medians is not a measured gap on the same listings.
• •What is missing: taxes, insurance, vacancy, management and repairs, which turn a gross yield into a net one, and the unit mix, which differs between what sells and what rents.

Sources and related pages

• •Resideline tracked closings inside city limits (window per city, updated September 10, 2026) and rental listings since September 10, 2025; confirmed lease closes extracted from property records.
• •More Maine rankings: Cheapest cities to buy a house in Maine ranks the same kind of list with each city's price per square foot for houses, realized appreciation and days to contract beside the median. The Maine housing market hub carries the statewide figures and the largest Maine markets by closings.
• •Asking rent vs observed rent compares live asking rents with final asking rents under that study's own definition; it says nothing about confirmed lease closes.

Prepared with Resideline's research pipeline and reviewed by Jeffrey Batista, Resideline's founder.