Business is good in ‘Vacationland.’ It would be even better with more housing.

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Some of that is changing. A recent homebuilding spurt has helped boost inventories, TD Bank analysts said in June, but Maine still has “lower than average supply levels, which we expect will lead to above average price gains in 2024.” The state’s rental availability has lagged the nation’s since 2019, and nearly half of tenants are “cost burdened,” spending at least 30% of their income on housing. “It’s a really big worry,” Hobbs said. “You cannot have a strong and prosperous economy without affordable housing.” You cannot have a strong and prosperous economy without affordable housing. Kelsi Hobbs, assistant professor of economics, University of Maine Unlike other parts of Maine, where populations swing sharply with seasonal tourism, the state’s Midcoast region, which includes Rockland, has plenty of full-time residents, said Shannon Landwehr, who leads the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce. “There are people who want to work, who want to be here — want to live here, want to be part of the businesses that are here — who are struggling to find the housing,” she said. Landwehr worries about sustaining the “diversity of the population” needed to power the economy and keep the area desirable for both residents and visitors if the problem deepens: “We’ll start to see kind of a division, if you will, of who’s here.”