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Tell us your income and savings instead, and we'll work out the max home price and a qualification signal for Maine.
How much house can I afford in Maine? →MaineHousing's (Maine State Housing Authority) primary low fixed-rate first mortgage for first-time homebuyers statewide, with options for little-to-no down payment; can be paired with the 'Advantage' down payment/closing-cost assistance option.
$5,000 toward down payment/closing costs, provided as part of a First Home Loan (not a separate second mortgage, no added interest rate) — $8,000/$11,000/$14,000 for 2/3/4-unit properties respectively under the Multi-Unit Advantage variant. Usable with FHA, VA, RD, and MaineHousing Self-Insured/Uninsured mobile home loans.
Fewer listings, fewer buyers, and sellers who have a reason to be on the market in December. Here is what a winter discount is actually worth on a $400,000 house — in monthly payment, in lifetime interest, and in the seller concessions a quiet market makes possible — and the three ways a winter purchase goes wrong.
Maine's transfer tax splits 50-50 by statute, so a buyer at the $428,478 median pays only $943 — yet cash to close at 20% down still tops $100,000.
The operational guide to buying property with a partner, friend, sibling, or parent — credit and DTI mechanics, title vesting, a clause-by-clause co-ownership agreement, and how the exit actually works.
A month-by-month plan for the year before you buy: what to do in each phase, what never to touch, how to document every dollar, and how to survive closing day.
Maine guide
Here is a number that surprises almost every Maine buyer, and not in the direction they expect. On a home at the statewide median sale price of $428,478, your entire transfer tax bill is about $943.
Not $9,430. Nine hundred and forty-three dollars.
Maine's transfer tax runs $2.20 per $500 of value, or 0.44% of the sale price — $1,885 on that $428,478 home. But 36 M.R.S. §4641-A splits that liability evenly: the grantor (seller) owes half and the grantee (buyer) owes half, 0.22% apiece, and half of $1,885 is $943. In a lot of states the deed transfer tax is the scariest line on the closing statement. In Maine it's a rounding error.
Which is exactly the problem, because the rest of the bill is not small. At that same median price, a 2-5% closing cost range comes to $8,570 to $21,424, midpoint around $14,997. Add a 20% down payment of $85,696 and you need roughly $100,693 in cash to reach the table. The transfer tax is under 1% of that. Everything else is what deserves your attention — and our full line-by-line breakdown of closing costs walks that whole list.
A note before you start: this is general education, not financial, legal, or tax advice. Every figure below is a statewide number drawn from CalculatorByState's sourced dataset, and your county, lender, title company, attorney, and contract will all move the total. Maine's median price in particular is contested — Redfin reports $428,478 while Houzeo's live-MLS page shows $390,300 — and a statewide median describes neither Kittery nor Presque Isle especially well. Your Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure are the authoritative documents. Use this to sanity-check them, not to replace them.
A 2-5% range against Maine's $428,478 median gives you roughly $8,570 to $21,424, midpoint near $14,997. The width is honest: a straightforward title-company closing sits near the bottom, while an attorney-handled purchase with a survey, higher lender charges, and a full year of prepaid taxes and insurance sits near the top. On a $350,000 purchase the same range is $7,000 to $17,500.
Read the full Maine guide →9 min read · Updated 2026-08-24