Scarborough, ME Real Cost: Prices and Taxes

How Maine Pays for Itself: Property Tax Plus a State Income Tax

As with every Maine market this site covers, Scarborough is not New Hampshire: Maine levies a state personal income tax on top of local property tax bills, while NH coastal towns lean on property tax alone. That matters even more here than it might first appear, because Scarborough's mill rate, covered in detail below, is genuinely one of the lower rates among coastal and greater-Portland towns. A low-looking property-tax figure on its own is not the whole story of what it costs to live here, and this page treats it that way rather than implying the mill rate alone settles the question.

Anyone comparing Scarborough to a New Hampshire coastal town on tax burden needs to run both numbers, the property tax rate and Maine's state income tax on their own income, not just the one that happens to look favorable.

What a Scarborough Home Actually Costs: Three Figures, Not One

Ask what a home costs in Scarborough and, as with most markets this site prices out, the answer depends on which source you ask. Zillow's Home Value Index, as of data through June 30, 2026, puts Scarborough's typical home value at $705,594, down 1.1 percent over the past year, with homes reportedly going to pending in around 8 days, a fast turnover time even as the average value ticked down slightly.

Movoto, citing Redfin-style MLS data, puts Scarborough's median sale price at $799,000 as of June 2026, with 110 homes sold that month, up from 93 the prior year, and average days on market down to 30, from 33 the year before. Redfin's own city page for Scarborough returned an error when checked directly, so the $799,000 figure should be treated as directionally reliable rather than fully cross-validated, and re-checked against redfin.com directly before relying on it. Taken together, though, the rising sales volume and shrinking days-on-market alongside a flat-to-slightly-down price point describe a market that is turning over faster and with more transactions, not a market that is cooling in any simple sense.

The Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey estimate puts Scarborough's median value of owner-occupied housing units at $551,900, meaningfully below both current-market figures above. That is not a contradiction of the Zillow or Redfin numbers, it is a different kind of measure, a trailing five-year blended estimate across the full owner-occupied housing stock, including long-held homes, rather than a snapshot of current listings and sales. Present Scarborough home values as roughly $552,000 by this historical Census baseline and roughly $706,000 to $799,000 by Zillow's and Redfin-derived current indexes, not as one clean number.

The Tax Rate: $11.33 Per $1,000, Among the Lowest on the Maine Coast

Scarborough's FY2025-26 mill rate is $11.33 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, effective August 20, 2025, per SEDCO's own tax page sourced from the town. A separate comparison table, apparently reflecting an earlier year's set rates, lists Scarborough at $10.93 against neighbors including Cape Elizabeth at $11.00, Waterboro at $11.05, South Portland at $13.20, Freeport at $13.35, Saco at $14.05, Westbrook at $14.75, Gorham at $14.70, Portland at $15.01, Bath at $16.50, and Bangor at $18.55. The $11.33-versus-$10.93 gap most likely reflects two different fiscal years' set rates rather than a contradiction, but it was not fully reconciled against the town's own assessing page this session, so treat $11.33 as the more current figure and verify directly with the Town of Scarborough before relying on either number.

Either figure places Scarborough among the lowest property tax rates of any coastal or greater-Portland Maine town, competitive with Cape Elizabeth and meaningfully below South Portland, Saco, Portland, and points further inland. That is a genuine, sourced advantage relative to several nearby towns, though as the section above lays out, it is only half of Scarborough's real tax picture once Maine's state income tax is factored in.

A Faster-Growing Town With a Real Non-Tourism Employer

Scarborough's population grew from 22,135 at the 2020 Census to an estimated 24,547 as of the Census Bureau's July 1, 2025 vintage estimate, roughly 11 percent growth in five years, making it one of the faster-growing towns in Maine. That kind of growth points toward real, resident-driven housing demand rather than pricing propped up only by seasonal or second-home buyers.

Scarborough is also the headquarters town of Hannaford supermarkets, a large, real, year-round employer that has nothing to do with beach tourism, a genuinely different economic anchor than the more tourism-dependent economies of nearby Wells and Old Orchard Beach. That distinction matters for anyone weighing Scarborough's cost of living against a more purely seasonal Maine beach town, since a meaningful share of Scarborough's economy and housing demand is tied to a stable, non-seasonal employer rather than to summer visitor traffic alone.

The Gap That Matters Most: Higgins Beach and Prouts Neck Aren't in These Numbers

Every figure above is a townwide Scarborough number, and Scarborough is a genuinely large town, over 47 square miles of land, most of which is inland or suburban, including areas like Oak Hill, North Scarborough, and Dunstan that are not beach property in any sense. No confirmed neighborhood-level Zillow or Redfin figure specific to Higgins Beach or the private Prouts Neck peninsula was available at the time of this research, a Zillow fetch aimed specifically at Prouts Neck was rate-limited during the research session behind this page.

That is a real, disclosed gap, not a rounding error. Higgins Beach and Prouts Neck are tightly bounded, highly desirable waterfront micro-markets, Prouts Neck in particular is a largely built-out, private, seasonal colony with gated roads and its own long-established country club and yacht club, and both almost certainly carry meaningfully higher price points than the townwide blended average above. This page will not invent a specific Higgins Beach or Prouts Neck figure to fill that gap. Anyone evaluating a purchase in either area should pull neighborhood-specific data directly from Zillow or Redfin, or from a Scarborough-based real estate agent, rather than assume the townwide $705,594 or $799,000 figures apply evenly to waterfront property in either location.

What This Research Could Not Confirm

Several figures that would normally round out a real-cost picture were genuinely thin in this research and should not be treated as settled. Beyond the Higgins Beach and Prouts Neck micro-market gap above, no dollar-figure damage estimate was found for the January 2024 storm that caused documented flooding and beachfront-road damage at Higgins Beach, and no specific FEMA flood-zone boundaries or repetitive-loss property counts were confirmed for Scarborough's coastal neighborhoods. A September 2025 town-commissioned coastal vulnerability assessment found that 38 roads in Scarborough currently face coastal flooding risk, rising to 100 roads within 25 years without intervention, a real, sourced planning finding worth factoring into any long-term ownership decision along the coast here, even though its cost implications for individual property owners were not quantified in this research.

A Practical Checklist Before You Rely on Any Number Here

First, do not anchor to a single home-value figure. Zillow's $705,594, Redfin/Movoto's $799,000, and the Census Bureau's $551,900 are three different kinds of numbers from three different sources and time horizons, and the first two describe current market conditions far more closely than the trailing Census estimate does.

Second, verify the $11.33-per-$1,000 mill rate directly with the Town of Scarborough's assessing office, since a separate comparison table this research found lists a different figure, $10.93, likely from an earlier fiscal year, and re-verify current Maine state income tax brackets with Maine Revenue Services. The two together, not the property tax rate alone, make up a Scarborough buyer's real tax burden.

Third, if you are specifically evaluating Higgins Beach or Prouts Neck rather than Scarborough generally, treat the townwide figures on this page as a floor, not an estimate of what waterfront property there actually costs, and pull neighborhood-specific listings directly. Fourth, treat the January 2024 storm damage and the 2025 coastal vulnerability findings as open, evolving planning stories, not settled cost figures, and check scarboroughmaine.org directly for the latest status.

Confirm every figure on this page directly with the Town of Scarborough, the U.S. Census Bureau, Maine Revenue Services, and a Maine-licensed real estate agent or tax professional before relying on it financially. Nothing here is tax, legal, or financial advice.