She’s been searching for months. Kelly Normandin has yet to find a safe, pet-friendly apartment in the Skowhegan area for less than $1,000 a month.
“In Madison, why is a studio over $1,000?” she said. “Two people could move in there and obviously afford it, but I’m one person, right?”
That sum, which is compounded by a security deposit, pet fee, and regular bills including utilities, is too expensive for Normandin, who works as an assistant at a law office. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, professionals could expect to pay cheap rent that was highly affordable in more rural areas like Skowhegan.
Visit any Maine housing-related Facebook post or Reddit thread, and you’ll find users decrying “exorbitant” rental rates in rural areas of the state, such as a listing in the York County town of Dayton that attracted derision on Reddit for being $1,750 per month.
These can be overpriced outliers, but they mark a trend. Urban renters in Maine were only 3 percent more likely to be cost-burdened by housing as rural ones, a University of Minnesota study found in 2024. Nationally, middle-income renters are less likely to be burdened than low-income ones, but their rents are still rising fastest. a Harvard University study found.
The increases are being driven by rising property taxes, insurance and utility bills that landlords are getting and passing down to tenants, Bangor and Brewer-area landlord Nicole Sproul said.
Though Sproul said landlords try their best to keep rent low, these expenses have pushed rental prices up in rural areas with tight housing inventory as well as in cities and towns where housing demand is higher. Her available units are between $1,600 and $1,800 per month.
“I have been in the rental market for 22 years. I never imagined that rental prices would be where they are today in this area: commercial or residential, rural or in-town,” Sproul said.
New apartments are expensive to build, Sproul noted. Landlords find themselves needing to rent a unit for more than what the average earner can afford. All of these factors have conspired to price people like Normandin out of safe, affordable places to live where they work.
With no other options, Normandin has been living in a Skowhegan apartment since June where the rent is low at $600. Yet the unit’s maintenance issues and the high utility costs that she paid have rendered it an untenable living situation.
Normandin makes too much to apply to a low-income housing project or for assistance, but can’t afford the market rate. That makes her a part of the growing “missing middle” in Maine, and building housing units to cater to that demographic are notoriously most difficult to develop.
“I have a bunch of other bills to pay, and it leaves me low income,” she said.
Facing few options, Normandin said she’s considering moving into her ex-boyfriend’s basement while she finds a better apartment to relocate to.
Another landlord, Brett Brockway, who manages 500 apartments between Rumford, Lewiston, Augusta and Waterville, believes that reprieve is close at hand. Maine’s rental market is cooling, attributing that to a lessened demand for units and to rent relief that inflated prices drying up. In many cases, he has begun lowering rents from $1,500 to $1,300 or less.
“We’re back to underwriting apartments that two people on minimum wage [are] able to afford, which just seems more normal and not as crazy and detrimental,” he said.
