Cost of Living & Housing in Southwest Harbor
Southwest Harbor's cost of living centers on genuinely expensive Mount Desert Island coastal housing, offset by a comparatively low local property tax rate and Maine's own statewide tax profile.
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Learn moreGenuinely expensive coastal housing
Southwest Harbor's median sale price ran approximately $369,000 (Redfin, most recent month), with separate home-value estimates running as high as approximately $493,000 -- both well above the roughly $355,000-$375,000 range commonly cited nationally in 2026 (base record).
A low 0.90% effective property tax rate, but a high dollar bill
Southwest Harbor's own 0.90% effective property tax rate runs below both the national and Maine statewide medians, but its high home values still push the average annual tax bill to approximately $3,750 -- above the national median dollar bill of $2,400 (base record).
Maine's 7.15% top income tax rate and 5.5% sales tax
Maine's real, current 2026 individual income tax tops out at 7.15% for the overwhelming majority of taxpayers (with a new 2% millionaire's-tax surcharge above $1M/$1.5M income), alongside a 5.5% general sales tax with no local-option layer (base record; see maine.js).
A genuinely wide spread in local income data
This pass's research found Southwest Harbor-specific median household income figures ranging from $31,518 to $75,953 across sources -- a spread this record attributes to the town's very small population and a correspondingly wide Census margin of error (base record).
Key takeaways
- Southwest Harbor's housing runs genuinely expensive: a median sale price around $369,000, with estimates as high as approximately $493,000.
- Southwest Harbor's own 0.90% effective property tax rate is comparatively low, but the resulting ~$3,750 average annual bill still runs above the national median.
- Maine's 7.15% top income tax rate and 5.5% sales tax (no local option) apply in Southwest Harbor as they do statewide.
- Local median household income figures carry a genuinely wide, disclosed cross-source spread given the town's small population.
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