Buying a Home in Bangor, Maine: The Queen City, Brewer Across the River, Orono, Old Town, Hampden and Hermon

Paul Bunyan's birth certificate hangs in Bangor City Hall. It gives his birthday as February 12, 1834, the day the city was incorporated, a nod to the years when Bangor was the lumber capital of the country. The 31-foot statue of him on Main Street weighs 3,700 pounds, according to Roadside America. A few blocks from the statue, Kenduskeag Stream runs under the downtown streets and empties into the Penobscot River. Every April that stream carries Maine's largest canoe race, 16.5 miles down from the town of Kenduskeag to the finish downtown, and Maine Public covered the 59th running this past spring.

I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in Maine through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. If you are buying around Bangor, the first thing to find out is which town the home is in, because each town sets its own property tax rate and assesses homes at its own share of market value. Bangor, Brewer, Orono, Old Town, Hampden and Hermon are six separate towns in one county, Penobscot. Bangor and Brewer face each other across the Penobscot River, each with its own city council. Orono is the University of Maine's town, and Old Town, just north of it, has Indian Island inside its city limits. Hampden and Hermon are the towns south and west of Bangor, and both had subdivision plans before their planning boards this year. Last year Hermon and Old Town each permitted more new homes than the city of Bangor did, and I go through the towns one at a time below.

Bangor, Brewer and the towns around them

Downtown Bangor and the Kenduskeag

Downtown fills the point of land where the Kenduskeag meets the Penobscot. The storefronts along Main, Hammond, Central and Exchange Streets have been filling up this year. Cooper Flagg, who grew up in Newport at the west end of this county, opened Flagg Trading Co. with his cousin Tyler at 35 Main Street, and the Sun Journal reported the crowds at the September 12, 2026 opening. An Italian bistro, MJ's Catering, opened in July in the former Carolina's Sports and Spirits, serving four evenings a week. Rasa Indian Cuisine took 3,200 square feet at 175 Exchange Street this spring, with a clay oven for the naan, as the Bangor Daily News reported. Books-A-Million moved to a larger Bangor location this year as well.

The museums are downtown too. The Maine Discovery Museum fills three floors of the former Freese's department store at 74 Main Street. The University of Maine's Zillman Art Museum is free on the first floor of Norumbega Hall at 40 Harlow Street, and the International Cryptozoology Museum moved into its building at 490 Broadway on April 1, 2026. The Sunday farmers' market sets up in Abbott Square across Harlow Street from the Bangor Public Library through the warm months, and from December into April it moves indoors to the Sea Dog Brewing conference room on Front Street.

Little City, the Tree Streets and the two historic districts

Little City is the neighborhood between the Kenduskeag Stream and Center Street, built up in the 1890s. The name comes from a planning idea of that day, that a new development could be a self-contained little city inside the larger one, according to the Bangor Daily News piece on how the area's neighborhoods got their names. The Tree Streets are named for the streets in them: Grove, Elm, Forest, Palm, Birch and Fern. Broadway Park runs along both sides of Broadway between the two neighborhoods, and Little City Park has two tennis courts where Linden, Leighton and Norfolk Streets meet. If you are looking at a home on Birch, Elm, Fern or Palm, you will see fresh pavement: all four are on the city's 2026 paving schedule.

Two of Bangor's neighborhoods are historic districts on the National Register. The Whitney Park Historic District is 42 homes built between 1850 and 1910 on the west side of the city, anchored by the small triangular park at Hammond and Cedar Streets. The Broadway Historic District is bounded by Garland, Essex, State, Park and Center Streets. It was laid out on the model of Boston's Beacon Hill, with a green strip down the center, in the 1820s and 1830s when Bangor planned to be one of New England's chief ports.

Bass Park, the waterfront and Stillwater Avenue

Bass Park, off Main Street south of downtown, holds the Cross Insurance Center, which seats about 8,500 for a concert with a 2,000-person convention center attached, across the street from Hollywood Casino Bangor. The Bangor State Fair grounds and their harness racing track are in the same park. On the river, the Bangor Daily News counted the Maine Savings Amphitheater's 2026 season from Machine Gun Kelly on June 5 to Riley Green on August 15. The lower half of the riverfront path is closed while the stormwater work and the concert venue expansion are under way, so the paved mile along the Penobscot is shorter than usual this year.

On the far side of I-95, Stillwater Avenue is the retail corridor, and the Hogan Road exit that serves it is being rebuilt through the fall of 2029. The city's biggest 2026 paving job is Stillwater Avenue from Essex Street to Broadway. If you are looking at a home on this side of the city, you will be driving through both, and the road section below has the dates.

Brewer, across the Penobscot

Brewer is its own city, with its own council, its own school department and its own property tax rate, and it faces Bangor across the Penobscot River. Chamberlain Freedom Park on State Street holds a statue of Joshua Chamberlain, who was born in Brewer, and Maine's only official Underground Railroad memorial, according to the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. The city adopted a new Waterfront Zoning District in 2026 after a June 29 Planning Board hearing. It encourages ground-floor shops with homes on the floors above along the Penobscot and the Riverwalk, and it adds design standards, as Mainebiz described the plan. If you are looking at a home near the Brewer waterfront, that district is public record and it tells you what can be built next door.

Pier Park, a waterfront park and river trail on 4.2 acres of Brewer Land Trust land on North Main Street, is the first of several phases and starts with a $250,000 Maine Trails grant, according to the Bangor Daily News. The Saturday farmers' market is at the Brewer Auditorium on Wilson Street, and the paved Riverwalk runs along the river from Hardy Street with a children's garden beside it. Brewer is also paying for a new PreK-8 school, which I cover in the schools section.

Orono and the University of Maine

Orono is the University of Maine's town. In February 2026 the Maine Campus reported that the university was housing 3,576 students, 173 of them in temporary housing. A housing survey the university ran found a need for 500 more beds and another dining hall. Construction plans for those are still preliminary. In July 2026 the Orono Planning Board rezoned four lots around Orono Brewing Company from residential to commercial, clearing the way for the brewery to propose expansions, as the Bangor Daily News reported. If you are looking on those streets, the rezoning is on file at the town office.

The Stillwater River Trail runs 1.8 flat miles from downtown Orono to the Orono Cemetery, with about six tenths of a mile of it wheelchair accessible. Webster Park is five riverside acres on North Main Avenue with its own parking lot. The outdoor farmers' market uses the university's steam plant lot on College Avenue.

Old Town and Indian Island

Old Town's name comes from "Indian Old Town," the English name for the largest Penobscot village, which is now Indian Island. Indian Island is the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation, home of the Penobscot Nation, a federally recognized tribe, and it lies inside Old Town's city limits on its own island in the river, reached by the bridge from Old Town. Spencer Park, where Stillwater Avenue meets North Main Street, looks out at the island and the dam. The Penobscot Nation has its own housing department with its own list of available homes. If the home you are looking at is on the island, please call me and we will talk it through together before you go any further.

The Old Town paper mill, a sawmill from 1860 and a paper mill from 1882, has been idle since 2023, when about 199 jobs ended there, and ND Paper still owns it. Old Town permitted 38 new housing units in 2025, more than the city of Bangor did. Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, on West Old Town Road, has seven miles of free trail across 2,400 acres along Pushaw and Dead Streams.

Hampden

Hampden is the town south of Bangor along the river, and its property tax rate is in the tax section below. Its public schools belong to RSU 22, a four-town district with Newburgh, Winterport and Frankfort, about 2,025 students in six schools according to RSU 22. Winterport and Frankfort are in Waldo County, so the district reaches outside this metro. On the planning side, Deerfield Acres is a seven-lot subdivision off Kennebec Road, and an amended plan for Arey's Corner is dated February 26, 2026 on the Town of Hampden's planning page. Dorothea Dix Park off Main Road South is named for the reformer who was born here and opens onto the river, and Hamlin's Marina on Main Road North has the boat ramps where the paddling routes down the Penobscot end. The Friday farmers' market sets up at St. Matthews Church on Western Avenue.

Hermon

Hermon is growing. Wikipedia's summary of the census puts the town at 5,416 people in 2010 and 6,461 in 2020, a 19.3% increase and the largest among the towns around Bangor. In 2025 it permitted 43 new housing units to Bangor's 32. The town's 2023 comprehensive plan credits expanded sewer and water in its designated growth area for making that building possible, and Cottage Lane, a 13-lot subdivision, was on the Planning Board's August 25, 2026 agenda. Dysart's, the truck stop that Food & Wine named the best in America for gas station food in 2022, has been at 530 Coldbrook Road in Hermon since the Dysart family opened it in 1967. There are two Dysart's locations: the Hermon truck stop and Dysart's On Broadway in Bangor. Ecotat Gardens and Arboretum on Route 2 has more than 55 gardens and a native tree trail across 88 acres, open without charge in daylight.

Newport, Pushaw Lake and the camps

Penobscot County runs well past the towns around Bangor. Newport, about 30 miles west of Bangor on Sebasticook Lake, is Cooper Flagg's hometown, where he played at Nokomis Regional High School. Pushaw Lake straddles Glenburn and Orono and carries a campground and lakefront camps, and Hermon Pond has a town landing at Jackson Beach off Newburg Road. In Maine a seasonal lake home is called a camp, and a camp comes with a few things to check that a home in town does not, which I go through in the camps section below. In the north of the county, Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is reached from Patten, and its Loop Road closes to wheeled vehicles from mid-November into late May.

New homes, and where they are going in

Bangor awarded building permits for 32 new housing units in 2025, about one for every thousand residents, while Hermon permitted 43 and Old Town 38. The Bangor Daily News ran those numbers on June 30, 2026, and quoted City Councilor Michael Beck: "it's safe to say we fell short of where we would have liked to have been."

Statewide, Maine towns issued 7,499 permits in 2025, about 9% above the yearly goal the state set in 2024, and 182 towns reported for the first time because towns over 4,000 people were now required to.

The projects with dates on them are these:

• Outer Broadway: 26 rental units in 13 townhouse-style duplex buildings, each unit two bedrooms and one bath at just under 1,300 square feet. The site was approved April 21, 2026 and ground was broken the next day.
• Grandview Avenue: 62 units in two phases, 14 single-family homes first, then two three-story buildings of 24 units each. The preliminary permit came July 21, 2026, according to the Bangor Daily News.
• Milford Place, 35 Milford Street: 40 units of affordable housing for older adults, built by Penquis, which marked its construction progress in April 2026.
• Hermon, 599 Pine Tree Road: six apartments in a four-unit and a two-unit building.

The biggest item on the horizon is the Bangor Mall. In April 2026 a group led by Mike Cole signed an agreement to buy the mall, then about 30% occupied. The plan calls for more than 200 condominiums, roughly 175 of them in the former Sears with its 22-foot ceilings, plus assisted living, doctors' offices and shops facing outward. The sale was expected to close in June 2026 with about a year of design work before construction, as WABI reported. I have not confirmed that the sale closed, so please read all of that as a plan. Condominiums are scarce in this metro today, and 200 of them would be more than six times the city's whole 2025 permit count.

The city has also changed its rules to allow more homes. A residential lot in Bangor can now hold more units than it used to. A homeowner can also add an accessory dwelling unit, which is a small second home on the same lot, within the size limits in the city's land-development code. The council also voted 9-0 to let a qualifying affordable housing project build 14 feet taller than its zone normally allows, and to require only two parking spaces for every three units. The city's Affordable Housing Implementation Guide lays out the earlier changes.

Developers told the Bangor Daily News in May 2026 that the changes "likely haven't prevented new housing, but they also haven't spurred it," and that cost is the bigger barrier. The other barrier the paper has written about is sewer capacity. In March 2026 the Bangor Daily News reported that sewer systems near the end of their useful life are one of the biggest barriers to Maine's goal of 84,000 new homes by 2030. Hermon's comprehensive plan credits the sewer and water lines it added in its growth area for the homes being built there.

An impact fee is a one-time charge a town puts on new construction toward the roads and services growth needs. Since September 24, 2025, Maine law under 30-A §4354 requires a town to publish how it decides a fee is needed and how a developer's share is set. I did not find a published fee schedule for Bangor, Hermon, Hampden or Orono, so if you are buying a newly built home, please ask the town office whether one applies and what it is.

Roads, the Hogan Road interchange and the airport

The I-395 and Route 9 Connector is open. Six miles, in planning for more than two decades and under construction since 2017, it opened with a ribbon cutting on June 27, 2025, ahead of its fall date, at a cost of $104 million. It takes truck traffic off Routes 46 and 1A and ties Canada-bound freight to the highway system, as the Bangor Daily News reported the day it opened.

The Hogan Road interchange at I-95 Exit 187 will be a construction zone until the fall of 2029. MaineDOT is rebuilding it as a diverging diamond, a design where traffic crosses briefly to the left side of the road so left turns onto the ramps do not wait on a signal. Construction began April 20, 2026 under a $56.65 million contract with CPM Constructors of Freeport. The work has four main pieces. MaineDOT builds a new bridge south of the existing ones first. It repairs the eastbound Hogan Road bridge so that one stays in service. It takes the westbound bridge out altogether. And it adds a protected sidewalk across the interstate between the two bridges that remain.

The I-95 bridges over Broadway finish in spring 2027. The project also realigns the southbound ramps and reworks the intersections at Broadway and Alden Street, Earl Avenue and Central Street. Broadway closed under the bridges on some August 2026 nights, and MaineDOT's project updates carry the current schedule.

The 2026 paving list has Essex Street, Forest Avenue through to Stillwater, and Stillwater Avenue from Essex Street to Broadway as the major jobs.

Bangor International Airport began $59 million of work in April: a complete runway rehabilitation and a $14.5 million connector joining the domestic and international terminals. The FAA is paying $27.4 million of it and the Maine Air National Guard $15.9 million, according to Mainebiz. Passenger traffic is up more than 30% over five years. Five airlines fly from it today: Allegiant, American, Breeze, Delta and United. The airport is also the home of the 101st Air Refueling Wing of the Maine Air National Guard.

School buildings and the colleges

Fairmount School, the Bangor School Department's oldest building, is more than 100 years old, and asbestos was found in its ceiling. In spring 2026 the school committee decided to move Fairmount's students and staff into a wing of Bangor High School, with the move scheduled to begin June 24, 2026. The Bangor Daily News reported that repairing Fairmount would take more than a year and cost upwards of $60 million, close to the department's whole annual budget. The department applied to the Maine Department of Education for major construction funding for Fairmount, Mary Snow and Downeast schools, and none of the three ranked high enough to receive it. A repair the state does not fund gets paid for locally, so it lands on Bangor's property tax bill.

Two other towns are paying for new school buildings now. The Maine Department of Education's FY27 approved debt schedule lists Brewer's new PreK-8 school and RSU 22's new Hampden Academy. Attendance lines change as buildings do, so please check the current map for any address you are considering.

The colleges are employers and a source of housing demand. The University of Maine in Orono has more than 2,500 employees. Husson University in Bangor had 2,865 undergraduates in fall 2025 on a 208-acre campus, and Eastern Maine Community College, about two and a half miles from Husson, has about 2,042 students.

Hospitals and the big employers

Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center is the region's main referral hospital, the one the smaller hospitals around this part of Maine send their most serious cases to. It is also Bangor's largest employer, with more than 3,000 employees. It is in the middle of a $308 million modernization covering 361,000 square feet. The project architect describes a new tower with the main lobby, a 14-operating-room surgical suite, a neonatal intensive care unit and a renovated labor and delivery center with views of the Penobscot. I could not confirm a completion date or the current phase, so please ask if timing matters to you. St. Joseph Hospital is the metro's second general hospital, and Northern Light Acadia Hospital provides mental health and substance-use treatment.

Bangor is the service center for a region far larger than its own county. The Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce describes it as the hub for Penobscot, Hancock, Aroostook and Washington counties, with a regional labor force of more than 65,000. The employers that come up most are the University of Maine, Hannaford, Walmart, Husson and the hospitals, and only the hospital and the university publish a headcount.

Things to look up on any Bangor-area address

Everything in this section is a thing to look up before you make an offer, and I am glad to help you look it up. The towns differ on the property tax rate, on whether the home is on town water and sewer or a well and septic, and on the road in, so I take those one at a time. The facts here come from the towns' own websites, MaineDOT, Maine Revenue Services, the Bangor Daily News and the other sources linked beside them.

Property tax: the mil rate, the homestead exemption and the revaluation

A Maine property tax bill is the home's assessed value times the town's mil rate, less any exemptions. The mil rate is the town's tax rate, written as dollars of tax for every $1,000 of assessed value, and in Maine that one number covers school, town and county costs together. The Homestead Exemption takes $25,000 off the assessed value of the home you live in, and the tax year begins April 1, so you will want to file for it after you close.

Bangor's rate for the year that began July 1, 2026 is $17.13, plus $0.72 in the Bangor Center Development District downtown, according to Bangor Assessing. Hampden's is $17.65 and Brewer's is $15.40, according to Brewer Assessing. A lower rate does not by itself mean a lower bill, because each town assesses homes at its own share of what they sell for. Brewer assesses at a certified ratio of 100%, meaning its assessed values are meant to match market value. A lower rate on a fully assessed home can produce a larger bill than a higher rate on an under-assessed one. Maine Revenue Services publishes the ratio for every town in its full-value rate study, and I would read that before comparing two bills.

Bangor is also in the middle of a citywide revaluation. New values reflect market value as of April 1, 2026, according to the city's revaluation page. The final rate for the revaluation year is set in July, at what Maine calls the tax commitment, which is the point where the assessor finalizes the year's values and the rate and hands the list to the tax collector. A 2025 update of assessed values based on recent sales had already added about $246 million in citywide value, $28 million of it from new construction. So a Bangor home's assessed value and its tax bill are both in motion right now, and the seller's last bill will not tell you much about your first one. The assessor can tell you where a specific property stands.

Water, sewer, wells and septic

Inside the city, the sewer bill comes from the City of Bangor. The minimum charge is $118.20 a quarter, which covers up to 1,200 cubic feet of wastewater, and each 100 cubic feet above that costs $9.85. The city says an average household uses about 2,000 cubic feet a quarter, which comes to about $197, according to Bangor Accounts and Bills. Water is a separate bill from the Bangor Water District. The district asked the Maine Public Utilities Commission for a 10.5% increase, which would raise the minimum quarterly water bill to $71.95 from April 1, 2026. I have not confirmed that the commission approved it as filed, so please ask the district for the current rate.

Outside the lines of city water and sewer, the home is on a well and a septic system, and I would plan on three checks during your inspection period.

The well comes first. More than half of Maine homes draw water from a private well, and about one in ten Maine wells has too much arsenic, according to the Maine CDC. Maine law requires that information about arsenic testing be given to you in a real estate transaction, so you will see it in your paperwork. A water test is a normal part of the inspection period here. If arsenic turns up, the Maine CDC's study found that a treatment system at the kitchen sink or bottled water brings exposure down, so a high result is a cost to price into the purchase.

Then the septic system. In Maine a septic system is designed by a licensed site evaluator and permitted by the town's plumbing inspector, and the design on file with the town tells you how the system was built and where a replacement would go. If the home is in the shoreland zone, which I explain in the next section, Maine requires a septic inspection when the home changes hands.

Then radon. Maine's Property Disclosure Statement is the form a seller fills out about the home's known defects and hazards, and it has to tell you what the seller knows about radon. Testing is routine here, because the average reading in Maine is above the level at which the EPA recommends fixing the home. The seller has to give you that disclosure before or right when you make your offer. If it reaches you afterward, you have 72 hours to walk away with no penalty.

Camps, the shoreland zone and private roads

A camp is a seasonal lake home, and most camps are in Maine's shoreland zone. In plain terms, the shoreland zone is the strip of land within 250 feet of a pond over 10 acres, most rivers, tidal water or a wetland over 10 acres. It also takes in the land within 75 feet of the smaller streams that qualify, under the Maine DEP's shoreland rules. Pushaw Lake and the Penobscot both qualify. Inside that strip, a new building has to be set back from the water. The setback is 100 feet on a great pond, which is Maine's term for a pond over 10 acres, and on the rivers that feed it, and 75 feet everywhere else. Most camps were built long before those setbacks, closer to the water than the rules allow today. That camp can stay where it is, and it can be sold to you. If you want to add on, the expansion limit is measured from the camp's footprint as it stood on January 1, 1989, and the room to grow from that footprint is small. The town's code enforcement officer has that 1989 record. If you are looking at a camp on Pushaw Lake with a renovation in mind, please ask for it before you make the offer, and I am happy to help you read it.

Many camps and some year-round homes are on a private road, and Maine has a law for sharing the cost of it. Under 23 M.R.S. §3101 and §3121, when four or more lots share a private road, three or more of the owners can form a road association. Unless a deed or an agreement says otherwise, every homeowner on the road pays an equal share of keeping it up. Keeping it up means plowing, sanding and ice control, grading and fresh gravel, culverts, ditches and stormwater. It works much like a homeowners' association, except that state law is what creates it. Please ask the seller for the road agreement and for last winter's bill, so you know what the road costs before you make the offer.

Posted roads and a spring closing

Towns post their local roads when the spring thaw softens the road base. A bright orange sign goes up at every entrance listing the maximum weight, typically 23,000 pounds, and the posting usually runs from March until late April or early May, according to MaineDOT. Four-wheel drive does not help, because the problem is the road surface. A loaded moving truck can be over 23,000 pounds. So if you are closing in March or April on a home up a gravel road, we plan the moving day around the posting, and the closing date can stay where it is.

Flood, heat and insurance

The Kenduskeag that carries the canoe race in April also made the city close on-street parking near Kenduskeag Stream Plaza in March 2026 ahead of expected rain, as the Bangor Daily News reported. Standard homeowners insurance does not cover flood. FEMA's flood map marks the land with at least a 1% chance of flooding in any year as a Special Flood Hazard Area. If the home is in one, the lender requires flood insurance, and that premium becomes part of your monthly payment. I walk through how to price it before you make an offer in buying a home in a flood zone.

Maine heats a larger share of its homes with oil than any other state, and heating oil prices in September 2026 were nearing the record set in 2022. Heating oil does not go into the payment a lender qualifies you on, so it belongs in your own budget, and that starts with knowing what heats the home: oil, propane, natural gas, wood or a heat pump. Bangor runs its own grant program of up to $2,000 toward heat pumps and weatherization, awarded on total family income. The city's heat pump and weatherization page says it can be combined with Efficiency Maine's rebates, which are based on the home's assessed value. Maine's housing stock is the eighth oldest in the country, with more than half of its homes built before 1980, so a lead paint disclosure and a heating system's age are ordinary parts of a purchase here. Please get the homeowners insurance quote early, the same way you would anywhere.

Closing in Maine

Maine's real estate transfer tax is $2.20 for every $500 of value, and the statute splits it equally between you and the seller, $1.10 each, unless an exemption under 36 M.R.S. §4641-C applies. Since November 1, 2025, the part of a price above $1,000,000 is taxed at $6.00 per $500, and in a county where the typical sale is a fraction of that, almost no one here pays it. In Maine both title companies and attorneys conduct closings, and the choice is yours; most closings run through a title agent. The Maine page covers the transfer tax in detail and the rest of the state's closing rules.

Your mortgage payment on a Bangor-area home

Penobscot County's median sale price for June through August 2026 was $304,000, up 3.97% on a year earlier, on 507 sales, according to a September report on the Maine Association of REALTORS' county figures. Maine's statewide median hit a record $425,000 in August, so the Penobscot County median is roughly 72% of the statewide number.

Penobscot is one county, so the loan limits are the same on every address here, and the 2026 conforming and FHA limits are in the box below this article. The conforming limit is the largest loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy here, and a loan above it is a jumbo loan, which conforming versus jumbo loans explains. Penobscot's FHA limit is the standard national amount, and it is well above the county median, so FHA covers nearly everything a client here is likely to buy. In 2024, 27% of the home purchases in this metro were FHA or VA loans, more than double Portland's share, and 170 of them were VA loans. The page on how VA loans work in Maine covers entitlement and the funding fee.

The property tax, the homeowners and flood insurance, and any condominium or road association dues are all part of the monthly payment a lender qualifies you on. Water, sewer and heating oil are not part of that payment, but they are part of the payment you live with, so I put them in your budget beside it. Pre-approval in Maine covers what the letter is based on. If you own a business, or you are buying a camp to fix up, self-employed in Maine and cash-out refinancing in Maine cover what changes in the file.

You can run your numbers for a Bangor-area purchase whenever you're ready: rates for your scenario and Maine closing costs, with no credit pull and no account. Choose the option that works best for you, and the application opens from there. If you'd rather talk through your situation with me first, I'm happy to do that too.

Nothing here is a loan approval, a denial or a commitment to lend, and it is not tax advice. The value applied to a specific property and its mil rate are set by that town's assessor, so please confirm them with the town office.

Common questions

Is Brewer part of Bangor?

No. Brewer is a separate city on the east bank of the Penobscot River, with its own council, its own school department and its own property tax rate. The two cities face each other across the river and share the bridges, but a home in Brewer is taxed and schooled by Brewer.

Which towns around Bangor are building the most new homes?

In 2025, Hermon permitted 43 new housing units and Old Town permitted 38, while the city of Bangor permitted 32. Hermon's comprehensive plan credits expanded sewer and water in its growth area for the building there, and a 13-lot subdivision called Cottage Lane was before its Planning Board in August 2026.

What is the diverging diamond at Hogan Road, and when will it be finished?

MaineDOT is rebuilding the I-95 Exit 187 interchange at Hogan Road as a diverging diamond, a design where traffic crosses briefly to the left side of the road so left turns onto the ramps do not wait on a signal. Construction began April 20, 2026, and completion is scheduled for the fall of 2029.

Does a lower mil rate mean a lower property tax bill in the Bangor area?

Not on its own. The mil rate is the town's tax rate per thousand dollars of assessed value, and towns assess at different ratios of market value. Brewer assesses at a certified ratio of 100%, and Bangor is in the middle of a citywide revaluation to April 1, 2026 market values. The reliable comparison is the two actual bills side by side, with the ratio study from Maine Revenue Services in hand.

What is a posted road in Maine?

A posted road is a town or state road closed to heavy vehicles during the spring thaw, marked by an orange sign at each entrance listing the maximum weight. Postings usually run from March until late April or early May. A loaded moving truck can exceed the limit, so a spring closing on a gravel road needs the move planned around the posting.

Is Indian Island part of Old Town?

Indian Island is the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation, home of the Penobscot Nation, and it lies inside Old Town's city limits on its own island in the Penobscot River, reached by the bridge from Old Town. The Penobscot Nation has its own housing department and its own list of available homes, so if the home you are looking at is on the island, please call me and we will talk it through together.

Is the American Folk Festival still held on the Bangor waterfront?

No. The festival ran on the Bangor Waterfront from 2005, and its organizers dissolved the organization in November 2019, so 2019 was the last one. Some travel sites still show a current listing for it. The waterfront's summer events today are the Maine Savings Amphitheater concert season and the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race finish each April.