Though incomes in Maine as a whole may make the rental market more affordable for many Mainers, rental and home prices in Hancock County are high compared to the incomes of Hancock County residents, who face the highest housing costs in eastern and northern Maine.

Hancock County’s median household income is ranked the sixth-highest statewide at $41,869, according to 2005 figures compiled by Maine State Housing Authority. Hancock County’s median rent of $836 for a two-bedroom apartment and median home price of $196,000 each rank fourth-highest in Maine, behind Cumberland, Lincoln and York counties in both categories.

The highest median rents in Maine by county were $995 in Cumberland, $897 in York and $838 in Lincoln. Sagadahoc County was not far behind Hancock County with a median price of $833, and Knox County had the sixth-highest median price in Maine for a two-bedroom apartment for $800.

Though Knox and Sagadahoc counties each have average housing costs lower than those in Hancock County, their median incomes are higher.

Tom Martin of the Hancock County Planning Commission said recently that his agency does not have more detailed information about rents in the Ellsworth area, but he said the seasonal shift in rent prices and availability is an issue he and his fellow planners in the area have been aware of for years. He said it happens on Mount Desert Island, in Castine, and other seasonal waterfront-destination towns.

“It’s called the ‘Nantucket Shuffle,'” Martin said, referring to the Massachusetts island. “It comes on Memorial Day, when people living in nine-month rentals have to find a new place to live.”

A recent check of classified newspaper ads for apartments in Hancock County indicated that a rent of $590 a month – the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Maine – was at the low end of the available scale. Some rents on MDI, where Acadia National Park is located and which draws millions of tourists each summer, were closer to $900 or $1,000, with one in Bar Harbor listed at $1,175 per month, utilities not included.

Off MDI, the listed prices were cheaper for the most part. Prices for Ellsworth apartments ranged from $500 to $900, while Gouldsboro apartments were available in the $400 to $500 range. Apartments in Blue Hill were listed at around $700 per month, and in Lamoine several apartments were available for between $500 and $600.

Terrance Kelley, executive director of the MDI and Ellsworth Housing Authority, said recently that the higher rents on the island stay high, regardless of what the housing market might be doing elsewhere. This is because of a very tight market that is driven by limited land resources and fierce competition for available properties.

“It always just gradually keeps on climbing, regardless of what the rest of the country looks like,” he said.

State Rep. Ted Koffman of Bar Harbor said recently that Mount Desert Island is in dire need of affordable housing, both for renters and for homebuyers. A recent study of housing on the island shows that 80 percent of the MDI population would not be able to buy houses there today, he said.

“It’s getting out of control,” Koffman said. “I think we’re going to see fewer and fewer affordable rents available.”

Koffman said he believes there has to be some governmental role in encouraging work-force housing development if the situation is going to improve for working families.

“The marketplace has no conscience about this,” Koffman said. “[Rents] don’t seem to go down.”

Kelley said there are several ways the local rental market is skewed by the seasonal popularity of MDI, where developable property is hemmed in by the ocean and Acadia National Park. Larger hotels and restaurants frequently purchase properties to use as seasonal housing for their employees. Monthly rents for other properties often double or increase even more in the summer, which usually results in wealthier nonworking tenants or large groups of young college-age summer workers moving in for a few months and then moving away again. And in summer many owners rent their properties out to tourists by the week, making as much money in two months as they could renting to local wage-earners for a year.

“There’s a lot of rentals [this time of year],” Kelley said. “You could come on the island and find a rent very easily for 10 months.”

There are people who rent out their own homes, Kelley said, and live for the summer months at local campgrounds.

Some renters even have been known to move out of their apartments or houses and simply bivouac in the woods, either with or without a property owner’s permission, while their out-of-state landlords occupy the dwelling for a couple of weeks in August.

Rental prices in Ellsworth also have been increasing, Kelley said, but are not as high as they are on MDI. Affordable rents are one of the reasons the housing authority has plans to build 31 work-force housing units on a former farm property off Route 3 in Bar Harbor, he said, but the main reason is to prevent island life itself from ending up like affordable rents – mostly a seasonal phenomenon.

“It’s meant to keep [Mount Desert Island] a year-round vibrant community,” he said.