Yehuda Gittelson shares a converted warehouse loft in Portland’s East Bayside neighborhood with two roommates. He is a credentialed solar installer with a mechanical engineering degree and several years of field experience. He drives a paid-off Subaru. He packs his own lunch. He is also 28, earning a tradesperson’s wage in one of the most expensive rental markets in New England, and saving for a cabin he cannot yet afford to buy.
That tension is not unique to him. Portland’s cost of living is 14% above the national average, with housing expenses 36% above the national norm, according to PayScale data. The average rent in the city is around $1,867 per month, according to CoStar market data compiled by Apartments.com. To keep housing costs within the standard 30% threshold, a renter at that price point needs to earn roughly $74,700 a year. Maine’s median household income is $63,182.
The Gap Has a Name
A 2023 study commissioned by MaineHousing, the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, and the Maine Department of Economic Development put a number on the state’s housing deficit: 84,000 new homes needed by 2030 to keep pace with demand. Reaching that figure requires roughly doubling current production rates. A January 2025 follow-up report from HR&A Advisors found that both workers arriving in Maine and those already here face the same underlying obstacle — housing within reach of the jobs that need to be filled.
The Portland metro area carries most of the deficit’s weight. Median rent in Cumberland County, which contains greater Portland, hovered just below $1,600 during the 2020-2024 period, the highest figure in the state and above the national median of $1,413, according to U.S. Census data reported by the Bangor Daily News. Roughly half of renters in the county spent more than 30% of their income on housing during that stretch.
“I split rent three ways, and it still takes up more of my paycheck than it should,” Gittelson says. “If I were doing this alone on an entry-level installer’s wage, I don’t know how I’d make it work.”
What Buying Looks Like from Here
Homeownership is a different math problem entirely, and for most renters in Portland, it does not currently solve the problem.
Maine’s median home sale price reached approximately $400,000 in 2024, double what it was in 2020, according to MaineHousing’s 2025 outlook report. In Portland specifically, the median listing price in February 2025 was $650,000, with a median sold price of $581,900, per market data from CUSO Home Lending. The state’s affordability ratio is 5.1, meaning the median-priced home costs more than 5 years of median household income.
Mortgage rates have compounded the problem. Maine’s average 30-year fixed rate stood near 6.24% as of November 2025. Many existing homeowners, locked into rates from the low-interest years, are reluctant to sell, keeping inventory tight. New listings have grown, but the pace of construction has not closed the gap.
Gittelson is not currently shopping for a home in Portland.
“The cabin is still the plan,” he says. “Out west, off-grid, something I can actually own outright eventually. Portland prices make that feel more realistic than buying here.”
53% and Climbing
The cost burden reaches well beyond any single income bracket.
A worker earning Maine’s minimum wage can afford roughly $762 per month in rent under the 30% standard, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2025 Out of Reach report. The same report found that affording a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent requires earning $28.42 per hour, a figure above Maine’s median wage. Statewide, 53% of Maine renters are now cost-burdened, up from 32% five years ago, according to data cited by the Portland Press Herald.
MaineHousing completed 775 affordable units in 2024 and is targeting 727 more in 2025. The Portland Housing Authority built 105 affordable units last year. Against an 84,000-unit gap, those figures mark real progress on a very long timeline.
“It’s not like people don’t see the problem,” Gittelson says. “Everyone sees it. The question is whether the people approving what gets built are feeling the same pressure as the people who need to live somewhere.”
East Bayside Holds for Now
East Bayside ranks among the more affordable Portland neighborhoods by current rent data, which is part of why Gittelson landed there. The neighborhood sits close to the water, close to his work routes south, and close enough to the city’s food and music scene that leaving would cost him something beyond rent.
He is genuinely torn. The cabin in western Maine remains the long-term plan, and the Portland math keeps nudging him toward it. For now, three people sharing a loft is how the numbers balance.