The Real Cost of Living and Owning in Brunswick & Harpswell, ME

Home Values: Two Towns, Two Different Markets

Zillow's Home Value Index (ZHVI) puts Brunswick's typical home value at $470,611 as of a January 31, 2026 snapshot, essentially flat year over year at up just 0.1%, with 41 active listings — a genuinely stable, unremarkable trend line by the standard of this site's other Maine markets.

Brunswick's sale-price data tells a much messier story, and this page will not paper over it. Redfin's own city page reported a median sale price of just $326,000 in November 2025, down 18.5% year over year, on only 16 homes sold with 29 days on market. Movoto's Redfin-sourced market-trends page, by contrast, reported a June 2026 median sale price of $690,000 on 89 homes sold with 31 days on market. Those two figures — both nominally drawn from Redfin data — differ by more than double, and this research could not fully reconcile them; the November reading's tiny 16-sale sample is the likely culprit, but that is a plausible explanation, not a confirmed one. Rather than average these numbers or pick one arbitrarily, this page presents all three: Zillow's $470,611 ZHVI as the most methodologically stable figure found, alongside Redfin's $326,000 and Movoto's $690,000 for full transparency. Anyone pricing a specific Brunswick purchase should pull a fresh, dated Redfin figure directly rather than rely on any single number here.

Harpswell's Zillow ZHVI sits at $685,196 as of the same January 31, 2026 snapshot, down 1.3% year over year, on a much thinner 13 active listings — a smaller, lower-volume market consistent with a town of roughly 5,100 people. The U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey puts Harpswell's median home value, on its trailing multi-year estimate, at $609,700 — lower than Zillow's live index, the expected pattern when a trailing government estimate is compared against a current market read rather than a contradiction between the two.

Property Taxes: Harpswell's Low Mill Rate Is Not What It Looks Like

Harpswell's 2024 mill rate is $6.36 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, up from $6.10 in 2023. Set next to Brunswick's FY2025–2026 rate of $13.22 per $1,000, Harpswell looks like the dramatically lower-tax town. It is not that simple, and this page will not present it that way.

Harpswell has not conducted a townwide property revaluation since 2005 — a full two decades — meaning its assessed values are badly stale relative to actual 2025–2026 market prices. The town hired Vision Government Solutions under a $394,000 contract, approved September 2024, to conduct its first full revaluation in twenty years, with field inspections beginning March 2025 and the first tax bills reflecting new valuations due in August 2026. Vision's own project manager estimated Harpswell property values had at least doubled since 2005, and a Harpswell Select Board member predicted the nominal mill rate itself would likely fall sharply once the revaluation lands, even though the actual dollar tax burden on any individual property may not move proportionally. In short: Harpswell's $6.36 figure is a snapshot of a tax system mid-transition, not a stable, comparable "low taxes" number, and anyone budgeting a Harpswell purchase around it should expect that figure to change materially once August 2026 bills go out.

Income, Ownership, and Two Genuinely Different Economic Profiles

Brunswick's 2024 ACS median household income is $74,952, with per-capita income of $44,065, a 7.7% poverty rate, and a 71.2% homeownership rate — figures that describe a real, moderate-income working town, not a wealthy enclave. Brunswick's own Census/ACS median home value is $376,300, well below both its own Zillow ZHVI and Harpswell's figures across the board.

Harpswell's profile is meaningfully wealthier on every measure: a $96,250 median household income, $70,110 per-capita income, a lower 5.6% poverty rate, and an 83.3% homeownership rate. Harpswell is also demographically much older — 38.6% of its population is 65 or older, against just 8.8% under 18 — a genuinely retiree-heavy town, versus Brunswick's more balanced 22.9%-65-plus/17.2%-under-18 mix. None of this should be read as Brunswick being an affordable version of Harpswell; they are two different towns with two different buyer profiles, and a household budgeting around one town's income or tax figures should not assume the other town's numbers apply.

Adding It Up: What Is Verified, and What Still Needs a Professional

What is well-grounded here: Brunswick's Zillow ZHVI of $470,611 (up 0.1% year over year, January 31, 2026 snapshot, 41 active listings); Harpswell's Zillow ZHVI of $685,196 (down 1.3% year over year, same snapshot, 13 active listings); Harpswell's Census/ACS median home value of $609,700; Brunswick's FY2025–2026 mill rate of $13.22 per $1,000; Harpswell's 2024 mill rate of $6.36 per $1,000, up from $6.10 in 2023, alongside the confirmed, dated fact of its first revaluation since 2005 and its August 2026 new-bill timeline; and both towns' 2024 ACS income, poverty, and homeownership figures.

What this page will not guess: a single, reconciled Brunswick median sale price, given the unresolved gap between Redfin's $326,000 (November 2025, a thin 16-sale sample) and Movoto's $690,000 (June 2026, 89 sales); any village- or island-level sub-market pricing within Harpswell (Bailey Island, Orr's Island, or Cundy's Harbor each have their own Zillow neighborhood pages that were not pulled this session); what Harpswell's post-revaluation mill rate will actually be once new bills arrive in August 2026; and any property-specific assessed value or tax bill for either town. Get current numbers from the people who actually have them: Brunswick's own Assessor's Office and Harpswell's Assessor's Office (currently working through Vision Government Solutions' revaluation) for a current tax rate or a specific parcel's assessed value, a Maine-licensed real estate agent with recent closed comparables in the specific town and village for a current sale-price figure, and a Maine-licensed real estate attorney or tax professional before making any purchase decision. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, insurance, or financial advice.