Maine Still Ranks at the Top Among States People are Moving to Most

In all my life, I think Maine's population has barely budged.

All through school, I remember being taught that Maine's population was roughly a million people. Fast forward more years than I care to admit, one could argue Maine's population hasn't changed that much. We're probably still very much in the zip code of a million people. We don't grow like California or New York. We just do our Maine thing.

But when the pandemic hit in 2020, that slowly started to shift. Initially, everyone suspected perhaps the real estate market would tumble hard, because no one could go anywhere. In fact, the opposite happened. States like Maine, where the covid numbers weren't too bad, experienced small booms in their numbers.

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Then the housing market absolutely blew up.

We all know the story of what happened next. House started selling like wildfire, because people wanted to get away from the action. And with so many people working from home, it became very easy for folks to just pack up and come here, where the outrageous home prices seemed tame compared to the bigger cities.

Next thing you know, there were bidding wars on houses, and people were bypassing home inspections... anything they could do to just lock in their home up in the woods. And here we are almost 4 years later, and the housing market is still booming up here. But is there an end in sight?

We just keep growing.

Recently, Atlas Van Lines, one of the nation's leading movers, put out their annual list of where people are moving to the most. Right at the very top of that list? The Pine Tree State! People are still moving here in droves. We were #1 two years ago, and #2 last year. So people obviously want to make our little state their forever home.

Ironically, most of these folks are still coming from Massachusetts, according to Maine Biz. You'd think MA would be good enough for these folks, but apparently not. At the rate we're going, Maine shows no signs of things cooling. House prices have a bit, but that will likely just bring in even more people. Get ready for that!

By the way, if you're curious where people left the most? Illinois. Nobody wants to be there anymore. Ick.

Let's see how two different data sources stack up...