Here are two ways to look at how valuable Maine’s land and properties are compared with the rest of the U.S.
The blog Metrocosm took the property values of every county in the U.S. and built the nutso map shown above, which shows just how low Maine’s residential property values are compared with the rest of the states in the lower 48. The data come from the Census, via this Economist map.
In the map, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago and New York City and the Hamptons get blown way, way up. Maine meanwhile, gets squeezed out. It’s barely visible.
To me, it looks like a beating heart — or maybe what happens when you squeeze a balloon between your fingers.
But how have property values changed over time?
For that, let’s turn to this GIF from howmuch.net, which shows that, back in 1975, you could buy land to build a house for less than it costs now to buy a used Camry. The cost ballooned in the mid-2000s housing boom, before dropping way back down when the bubble popped.
Those numbers are estimates compiled by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and based on federal data from 1975 to this year. It calculated the cost of land by taking the total value of the average house and subtracting the cost of the structure itself.
If you look at the spreadsheet of the data, which I’ve uploaded here (it’s a huge file) you can see that the average value of the land used for a new house in Maine was $101,025 in the first quarter of 2006. In this year’s first quarter, it was $40,214.
You can click on the image below to see the changes:
