Hassan Karimi, a user-experience designer for MetLife, works remotely full time. He and his wife, Erin, moved to Maine in 2024 and are among thousands of people who have settled here since the pandemic. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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THE INFLUX of new blood in the workforce could be a boon for the oldest state in the nation, but most who have settled here aren’t working for Maine companies.
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NEARLY HALF have moved to the state’s southernmost counties: Cumberland and York.
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DEMAND FOR HOUSING has driven up living costs and forced the state to confront its already dire need to build much more.
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CLIMATE CHANGE played at least some role in the ongoing migration.
Hassan Karimi chuckles almost disbelievingly when he explains how he and his wife moved from New Jersey to Thomaston, a Midcoast town of fewer than 3,000 people.
“I’m still kind of surprised that we moved up here. We don’t really have any ties to Maine,” he said.
Before they began their search, they had only visited once — a weeklong trip in 2022. But it was enough.
“We started to fall in love with the place,” said Karimi, 40.
He and his wife, Erin, relocated in November after more than a decade in the tri-state area.
The couple are among over 126,400 people who moved to Maine between 2020 and Aug. 1 of this year — an estimate based on a Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram analysis of out-of-state driver’s licenses converted by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles that likely undercounts the extent of the shift. The state experienced a population boom because of the COVID-19 pandemic when people, suddenly able to work from home — and motivated to avoid crowds — left big cities.
As life has slowly returned to “normal” and some companies have cut back on their remote work policies, the gold rush to Vacationland has slowed. But experts say people like Karimi are still packing up their lives and moving to Maine in a steady stream.
The license data shows at least 22,000 people moved here during each of the last two years, down from a peak of almost 26,000 in 2021. That’s over 6,000 more newcomers a year than there were a decade ago. And the trend could continue as people fleeing climate-related issues like wildfires and hurricanes seek relative safety here.
“It’s still increasing, but that rate of increase is slowing down,” said Rachel Bouvier, a University of Southern Maine economics professor whose study on post-pandemic migration was recently published in Maine Policy Review.
In many ways, continued interest in Maine is a boon for the nation’s oldest state, which has desperately needed workers to fill thousands of jobs expected to open in the next few years as people retire. But research shows the workers who have settled here are largely staying away from Maine companies. And the added competition for housing has driven up living costs and forced the state to reckon with another dire need: to build more.
“Migration can bring new opportunities for economic development, workforce renewal and civic engagement,” wrote Bouvier and co-author Joie Grandbois, director of sustainability for Historic New England. “At the same time, it can exacerbate housing pressures, income inequality and cultural tensions.”
PEOPLE ‘FROM AWAY’ STILL COMING
Earlier this year, State Economist Amanda Rector reported an overall population jump of 5,366 people, or 0.4%, from 2023-24, which reflects migration to and from other states and countries, as well as births and deaths.
It’s a smaller increase than the state has seen in recent years, and lower than the national average of 1%.
In the decade leading up to the pandemic, Maine’s population grew just 2.6%, placing it in the bottom 10 states for growth. But over the last four years, it grew 3.1%, outpacing regional and national averages. Maine has increased its population by more than 40,000 since 2021, despite deaths still outnumbering births.
People moving from other states played the biggest role in that change, though the state economist said last year’s growth was “more evenly split” with people arriving from other countries.
These migration figures, which stem from the U.S. Census, include temporary residents like students who move here for college and seasonal workers.
Since people who drive are required to get a Maine license within a month of arriving, license conversions “provide strong representation” of newcomers committed to living in the state longer-term, according to a consulting firm the state hired last year to study why people move to Maine.
Data obtained by the Press Herald from the BMV shows that between January 2020 and Aug. 1 of this year, 39% of new residents came from other New England states, with 19% from Massachusetts and 12% from New Hampshire. Florida (8%), New York (6%) and California (5%) were the next most common.
Nearly half settled in the southernmost Cumberland (27%) and York (20%) counties, followed by Penobscot (9%), where Bangor is, and Kennebec (6%), home to the state capital. The data doesn’t include municipal-level information.
Wallace Economic Advisors, the firm hired by the state, said that people largely moved to Maine for outdoor recreation opportunities, proximity to friends and family and a lower cost of living, according to the January report.
Climate change also played at least some role, with more than 40% of the 2,500 people surveyed indicating climate-related issues had a moderate influence on their decision to move to Maine and 22% noting a “somewhat strong to extremely strong” influence.
“It is clear that people are thinking about the issue and acting on it,” the report says. “While not an immediate short-term concern, … as climate-related risks increase, climate migration to Maine is anticipated to trend upwards.”
GROWING A COMMUNITY
For the Karimis, now in Thomaston, it was the state’s deep connection to nature and the way its craft restaurant scene reflects that connection that drew them in.
The couple knew they wanted to leave New Jersey, where they had moved from Brooklyn early on in the pandemic. At one point, they were under contract on a house in upstate New York, but when that fell through and they were once again mulling options, “we noticed we kept comparing everything to Maine,” Karimi said.
As a user-experience designer for MetLife, Karimi works remotely full time, though his wife had to do some “restructuring” and is “figuring out her next steps,” he said.
A couple walk by Winona’s on Elm Street in downtown Camden in July. The Midcoast region’s restaurant scene and sense of community are part of what drove Hassan Karimi and his wife to move to Thomaston last year. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
Karimi said he didn’t expect to settle north of Portland. But once he and his wife saw the Midcoast, they fell in love with the landscape and the sense of community in the collection of small towns between Thomaston and Camden.
It’s been a cultural adjustment. The lack of public transportation has been jarring, Karimi said. As new homeowners, they’re spending weekends doing things they’d never have to do in New York City, like rent a log splitter to chop the two cords of firewood piled outside their garage.
Much of it has been good, too.
“In New York City, everything was right there, but it was almost hard to access,” Karimi said. “In Maine, I feel like I’m growing this community, and it’s happening much faster. Making real, meaningful connections and relationships is much easier, and it’s been nice.”
As someone “from away” and with a background in urban design, Karimi said he is aware of Maine’s struggle to balance needed growth with cultural and natural preservation.
“I would hate it if Maine grew the way that New Jersey grew. That would suck,” he said. “But how do you grow in a way that respects the things that are really great?”
MORE MONEY BUT NOT MORE WORKERS
In theory, the population boost is not only welcome, but needed in order to grow the state economy.
New residents have helped keep Maine’s average age flat at 44.8 years old, while the rest of the country aged by 0.6 years between 2020 and 2023, according to the state economist’s office. But that may not be enough to fend off concerns about filling the gap left by retiring baby boomers.
A 2019 strategic plan by Gov. Janet Mills’ administration concluded that Maine needed to add 75,000 people to its workforce by 2030 to fill the jobs vacated by that generation, the youngest of which just turned 60.
But in the first three years, Maine’s workforce grew by 13,400 people, a rate that, if continued, would put the state at about 60% of its goal.
“Despite the positive jump in net migration in recent years … only one-third of migrants go to work for a Maine-based employer,” according to the Wallace Economic Advisors report. “Of those participating and employed, just 57% work for an employer with a presence in Maine.”
While remote work is an important factor enabling people to move to Maine, “transitioning to local employment” may be challenging, it said. There are more limited job opportunities and wages are lower. The report suggested developing ways to connect remote workers to local opportunities.
Cyclists ride a tandem bicycle along the Eastern Prom in Portland in September. Over a quarter of the people who moved to Maine since the pandemic settled in Cumberland County, according to data from the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)
Bouvier and Grandbois, who authored the study on post-pandemic migration, found that people moving to Maine had higher incomes than those who already live in Maine. That’s nothing new – it’s been the case for years, but the disparity has increased sharply since the pandemic.
In 2017, for example, new residents’ salaries were about 7% higher than those of existing residents. By 2021, that had increased to 25%, or about $93,000, compared with $73,000, according to the study.
‘PORTLAND WAS ALWAYS THE NO. 1’
Rebeccah Kilty is well-aware that she and her husband, Randall, are the “interlopers from out of state,” the “tech bros coming in with our tech bro salary.”
But she’s also glad to be settled in Maine. The pair, with their Labrador-Rottweiler mix, Duke, moved to an apartment in Portland’s East End in January 2024 after five years “bouncing around the country.”
Most recently in Seattle for a few months, and Utah before that, they were “tired of the red eyes” and wanted to be within driving distance of her family in Pennsylvania, as well as his family and many of their friends in Massachusetts.
Both working fully remote jobs, they could go anywhere but didn’t have to think hard about where they wanted to be.
“We didn’t really consider coming back to the Boston area because it was so expensive,” Kilty, 34, said. “Portland was always the No. 1 destination.”
Rebeccah Kilty and her husband, Randall, moved from Seattle to Portland in 2024. They both work fully remote jobs and wanted to be closer to friends and family on the East Coast after several years of bouncing around the country. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
They wanted a walkable and bike-able city and cared about a strong local food scene. The plan was to rent an apartment for a few years and then buy a house.
They tried looking before they moved, but there wasn’t much on the market. They were being picky – there were only a few neighborhoods they’d consider. They wanted a yard for Duke and a garage but didn’t want a renovation project or oil heating.
Then, last summer, they found a house that checked all their boxes, and their timeline moved up. They closed on a $640,000 home near the University of Southern Maine in October, just nine months after they moved to the state.
“We’ve joked that we plan to die in this house,” Kilty said. “We were able to upgrade every aspect of our living experience.”
The couple have made friends, most of whom are also from out of state. Kilty persuaded her sister to come to Maine, and they just helped her move into a condo in Saco.
RISING HOME PRICES
Bouvier and Grandbois attribute much of the state’s whopping 78% increase in housing costs since 2019 (jumping from a median sale price of $219,000 to $390,200 in 2024) to the rise in migration.
The more people move to an area seen as desirable, the greater the demand for housing, they wrote. It’s a matter of supply and demand, and Maine simply doesn’t have enough supply. The state is two years into a seven-year effort to add 84,000 new homes to meet current and future needs.
With their higher incomes, out-of-state buyers are more able to submit offers over the asking price during competitive bidding wars on limited homes, increasing prices overall.
“Even though we Mainers tend to think that property values are soaring — and they are — this is still a lot cheaper than it is in New York City, for example,” Bouvier said in an interview. “So what’s going on is people from New York City can move here, keep their job working remotely, have their New York salary and buy a way bigger house than an apartment. It’s a lot cheaper for them.”
Historically, out-of-state buyers have accounted for about 25% of Maine home sales. During the height of the pandemic, that increased to about 33% — or one-third — of all sales, according to data from MaineListings. Their share of the market has decreased slightly but is still elevated, at about 31% last year.
As Joe Frantel and his wife, Michaela Superson, watched housing prices climb in Greater Boston – the median home sale price passed $1 million for the first time this summer – Maine became more and more attractive.
They had visited Maine frequently during the decade or so that they lived in Boston. Superson had family in southern Maine and they liked the proximity to the ocean and outdoors. The more time the couple spent in the state, the more they could imagine living here.
Frantel and Superson, who also work fully remote tech jobs, took the leap last summer, and after a long home-search process that involved schlepping to and from open houses every weekend, they closed on a $1.1 million home in Scarborough in November.
“It is more than we could have expected it to be,” said Frantel, 35.
Joe Frantel and his wife moved to Maine last November because the housing market in Boston was untenable. They have family in the area and had visited Maine often. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom house, equipped with solar panels, is on 2 acres near the Gorham town line. There’s a family of turkeys that wanders the neighborhood, and it’s a place the couple said they can imagine growing into over the next few years.
In Maine, where the statewide median home sale price is now about $420,000, a $1.1 million price tag is steep (though not rare).
Frantel doesn’t discount that, but “if we wanted to spend that much in East Boston, we’d have a three-bed, two-bathroom condo with no yard,” he said. “The money still goes a lot farther.”
‘A LOT OF GREAT TALENT’
Out-of-staters may have helped to inflate home prices, but they’re also bringing a “much-needed increase in economic vitality,” Bouvier and Grandbois said.
Along with higher salaries and a more stabilized median age, new residents are largely bringing more education and businesses to the state.
In Cumberland County, the percentage of adults over the age of 25 with at least a bachelor’s degree increased from 47.2% in 2017 to 55.5% in 2023. Statewide, the increase was from 32% to 37%, according to the report.
And while they may not be working for Maine-based employers, they may be more likely to become them.
The share of the population starting new businesses grew from 0.29% to 0.42% between 2014 and 2021, according to the report. Additionally, Maine saw the most new business applications since 2005.
Nate Dionne, 33, who lives in Yarmouth, is what’s known locally as a “boomerang” – someone who grew up in Maine, left the state and then came back.
He grew up in Skowhegan, and after college bounced around Portland and Boston, later starting and selling companies in India, Dallas and then Brazil and Colombia.
But in March, he moved back to Maine to be closer to family and launched TripleBolt, a consulting, design and engineering firm based in Portland.
Portland may not be a tech hub like Boston or Dallas, but if you build a good company that gets to work on hard problems, it’s not challenging to build a base, he said.
“There’s a lot of great talent — it’s just sort of hidden,” Dionne said. “And you don’t have Facebook down the street trying to take all your people.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
