Portland ME DSCR: Run the $3,887 Month, Not a Blend

A Portland, Maine underwrite starts with a $3,887 median month, not with a local DSCR product this packet will not invent. AirROI's extract updated 2026-08-08 locks the cell at, ADR $370, occupancy 46.2 percent, RevPAR $173, and a $44,929 year. Peak three are August, September, and October, and the hole is January, February, and March. February is the revenue floor. Those sentences are the file you bring to a lender. They are not a rate sheet this page cannot screenshot, and they are not a leftover $46,000 to $49,000 remesh.

Second-home and DSCR are different questions on the same parcel. A second home can survive a February hole if household income carries the note. A DSCR story has to survive 46.2 percent occupancy and a clerk that may say the 293-file is full, without pretending August is twelve months. Read this beside theinvestment page, thestartup stack, and themarket report. This page will not invent a purchase price, a coupon, or a leftover $49k remesh to make the ratio prettier.

Most new Portland houses still cannot list, and new Tenant Occupied files are closed in 2026. Mainland Non-Owner Occupied sits at 293 for 2026. A mainland house or condo that is not Owner Occupied is not a nightly. AirROI Moderate is not that registration. A 39.9 percent thirty-plus setting is not booked winter. Finance that repeats those errors is not conservative. It is fiction with an amortization table attached to a house the city will not bless and February will not rescue. Call Room 307 before you pledge the nights on this published market year.

Bring the $3,887 month, not August

$3,887 is trailing host revenue for a typical active unit in monthly form. $44,929 is the same sentence as a year, labeled WATCH. They are not a purchase price, and they are not a coverage ratio. They are not twelve Augusts. A DSCR desk that treats an August screenshot as guaranteed year-one cash is already off the file. A DSCR desk that refuses to read the median month at all is ignoring the only dated host month this cluster will print. Do not annualize a peak-season average near $7,855 and call that the year.

Those dollars sit next to ADR $370, occupancy 46.2 percent, and RevPAR $173. The math is a city, not a 70 percent resort. Revenue moved minus 5.9 percent while supply held steady, which is a host-market sentence, not a debt-service promise. Superhost share is 71.4 percent, and professional management is 7.1 percent. Cleaning's median is $100. None of that converts $3,887 into a mortgage constant, and this page will not invent the price, rate, or tax stack required to pretend it does.

Bring the median month as the stress case, then haircut it if the house is new, unlicensed, or still waiting on a 293-file the waitlist has not issued. Do not raise it with South Portland's $27,535. Do not raise it with Maine's $9.2 billion statewide visitor spend. Do not raise it with Greater Portland's $2.7 billion 2023 visitor spend. Visitor dollars are not host years, and neighbor extracts are not your note. October is a peak, and it is not twelve months.

46 percent occupancy is the file

Occupancy at 46.2 percent means about half the available nights clear and about half do not, on average, across the year. RevPAR of $173 already bakes those empty nights into the cell. ADR of $370 is the rate band, and July is the ADR peak, not the year. Lenders who underwrite from one August calendar export will overstate nights and understate February. Bring the dated extract, and bring the peak three and the hole three. Bring the WATCH Keep so the file stays honest. August is the occupancy high, and january is the occupancy floor.

Lead time averages 63 days and average stay is 4.5 nights. Those are booking-cadence facts, not coverage facts, but they explain why a trailing twelve will not look like a sold August. One-night stays sit at 27.9 percent of the cell. Thirty-plus floors sit at 39.9 percent as a setting, not as booked winter. New York then Boston are the feeders. A lender who wants a fully automated 70 percent story is reading the wrong city. A lender who wants leftover July-through-September-only seasonality is reading the wrong calendar.

March is a low, and october is a peak. Stress the hole on purpose. If the deal still stands when January, February, and March earn like hole months, you have a conversation. If the deal requires those months to impersonate August, you have a no.shoulder pageis the calendar exhibit. This page is the credit translation. Do not replace either exhibit with a screenshot of one sold Saturday in August and call that screenshot the year.

An unlicensed lot is not a DSCR story

City short-term stays need a Chapter 6 listings, and old Port is city. A house that cannot list is not a short-term DSCR asset. It may be a second home, and it may be a long-term rental. It is not a weekend lockbox a lender should treat as $44,929 of pledged income. AirROI Moderate does not create a registration, and a published market year does not create a registration. An Old Port walk does not create a listings. Room 307 and the waitlist create the answer, and the answer for an unlicensed city house is no.

Ask for the registration before you ask for coverage. Guests are already punished when a listing fakes Old Port. A lender should not be less curious than a guest. Illegal signs , an unlicensed city house on Airbnb, a vacant mainland house listed as Owner Occupied, a seller who says the 293-file is optional , are not a credit overlay. They are a shutdown risk, and underwrite that as binary, not as a haircut. A cited $1,000 fine sits on false registration, and hedge live fee dollars.

Therules fileis the ordinance exhibit. This page is the credit reading of that ordinance. Print the listings. Leave out unverified why a published market year sits without one. Do not paste the extract year onto an unlicensed published market year and call it conservative. Do not paste a South Portland hope onto a city lot that is not on the Portland map. A Head Light photograph is Cape Elizabeth. It is not a Chapter 6 workaround a lender should treat as coverage.

A 293-file does not run as a gift

Mainland Non-Owner Occupied is paper a buyer must confirm, not a gift that lands with the deed. The 2026 city site prints 293 as the mainland Non-Owner Occupied cap. That number moves with registered long-term rentals as of September 1 of the previous year. A purchase file that assumes the seller's listings transfers without a Room 307 answer is already loose. A DSCR file that pledges nights during a gap you have not measured is pledging a shutdown. Confirm the live cap the week the committee meets.

A manager logo is not that object. Katrina's 24 homes and $1,326,814, and East Coast Retreat's 7 homes and $960,276, are their books, sitting on whatever clerk those parcels actually have. Professional management at 7.1 percent does not make the listings run as a gift.Peaks Island fileis a different clerk category with a 40-unit Non-Owner cap. This page only needs the credit translation: no paper, no pledged nights. Confirm with Room 307 before you model the first Saturday.

When a mainland Non-Owner Occupied file is late, it goes to the waitlist. New Tenant Occupied files cannot be opened in 2026. A South Portland house does not transfer onto a Portland APN. Thecouncil fileis the vote history. This page is the credit reading: 293 is a 2026 count, not a forever gift. A listings you have not re-read is a takeout risk, a refinance risk, and a sale risk. Put that sentence in the memo before anyone talks coverage.

Second-home versus investment on this published market year

A second-home file asks whether the household can carry the house when the lockbox is quiet. on this market sample the quiet is not hypothetical. February is the revenue hole. March closes a low that leftover July-through-September-only language still tries to deny. $3,887 is a median month, labeled WATCH, not twelve Augusts and not a coupon. If the note only works when every month prints peak, you do not have a second home with upside. You have a payment that needs a season the file did not print.

A DSCR or investment file asks whether rental income covers the debt on terms a specific lender will actually offer. This packet will not invent those terms. It will not name a local DSCR product. It will not convert $44,929 into a coverage ratio without a purchase price this page also will not invent. What it will say is that 46.2 percent occupancy and a 293-file that may say no are hard inputs. Household income is what keeps a second home honest when those inputs fail in February and again in March.

Choose the file that matches how you will actually use the house. Personal August weekends plus a legal listing in the other weeks is a second-home story, and it still needs the listings, Maine 9 percent lodging tax, and a number that answers. A house that must clear DSCR on trailing host math is a tighter story.remote-stay fileis the thirty-plus exhibit, not a winter occupancy claim. An Owner Occupied listings is not a DSCR shortcut.

What a lender will ask that marketing cannot answer

A serious lender will ask for the dated AirROI extract, not a blog recap. They will ask for trailing twelve on the actual house if it has one, and they will haircut a vacant-house pro forma that looks like twelve Augusts. They will ask whether the parcel is inside Portland, whether a Chapter 6 listings exists, whether that listings is Owner Occupied or a 293-file, whether a mainland ADU is still inside five years from the Certificate of Occupancy, and whether Maine lodging-tax remittance is in hand. They will ask who answers the phone. They will ask about the hole.

They will ask about cleaning and vacancy, because RevPAR at $173 already admits empty nights and the median clean is $100. They will ask whether winter is being sold as leftover summer. The honest answer is no. They will ask whether 39.9 percent at 30-plus means winter is booked. The honest answer is that it is a listing setting. January, February, and March need a reserve story or a second-home income story. Marketing cannot invent those months into August.

They should also ask what marketing cannot put in the memo. Purchase prices this page does not have. Local DSCR product names this page will not invent. Comps from South Portland's $27,535 used as if they were this note. A blend Greater Portland visitor dollar. A 2024 Portland-only visitor line this cluster refused to invent.tourism filealready refused to divide $2.7 billion. If your package needs those inventions to clear, the package is not ready.

South Portland’s $27,535 is a different extract

South Portland prints a $27,535 year on its own AirROI extract, next to ADR $265, occupancy 42.9 percent, and. That is a different city with a different clerk. It is a different cell and a different identity. It is not your Portland median month. It is not a target you may use to mark $3,887 up. Supply there grew 24.2 percent while revenue moved minus 10.9 percent.compare pageexists so those years stay labeled as different guests. A loan memo that borrows a neighbor year to fatten a Portland worksheet is not conservative.

Visitor-economy neighbors fail the same test, and greater Portland's $2.7 billion is 2023 visitor spend. Maine's $9.2 billion is 2024 statewide visitor spend, and neither is pledged income. Neither is lodging tax, and neither fills February. A lender who wants a Casco Bay blended year is asking you to import someone else's desk. Refuse. Portland is $44,929 and $3,887 on 870 listings at 46.2 percent occupancy. That is the whole geography of the note, and head Light is still Cape Elizabeth.

Named operator books do not rescue a thin file either. Katrina's twenty-four homes and $1,326,814, and East Coast Retreat's seven homes and $960,276, are their trailing revenue, not your coverage. Do not staple their totals to a one-house DSCR worksheet. Do not staple an August Saturday to a debt-service ratio. Neighbor years, neighbor visitor totals, and neighbor books are context. They are not this note. Print the Portland extract only, labeled. Leave the neighbor books on their own trailing pages.

When to wait

A WATCH year can still be a wait. $44,929 and $3,887 do not rescue a city lot that cannot list. They do not rescue a model that needs twelve Augusts. They do not rescue a South Portland driveway underwritten as an Old Port walk. They do not rescue a file that treats 46.2 percent occupancy as a marketing problem rather than the stress case. Occupancy is already the warning label. Ignore it and the answer is wait even though a seller wants August to speak for the year.

A narrow yes looks like a parcel that can actually list, a current listings in hand or a Room 307 answer you can screenshot, stay lengths that match the clerk, household income that can carry February, and a listing that picks one published market year. The extract stays labeled, and august is not the model month. New York remains the feeder you can name without a tourism invention. Cleaning, photos, and a reserve are funded before the first guest. New Tenant Occupied is still closed.

That can be a second home with a listing. It can be a DSCR conversation only if a real lender, using real terms, still clears after a hole-month haircut. If you are between those poles, do not buy time with a markdown or a fake peak. Fix the clerk, and fix the reserve, and fix the first screen. Then bring the file back to the same WATCH numbers: $3,887 as the month, 46.2 percent occupancy as the stress, and a 293-file that does not travel as a gift. Wait until those three sentences are true.

Related Reading

More Portland, Maine reading already live on Crest & Cove.

• 870 Listings and a $44,929 Year: Portland ME Report

• Portland ME STR Cap: 293 Licenses and a December 31 listings

• How to Market a Portland ME Stay, Not a Head Light listings

• Buying a Portland ME STR: The 293-Cap File Comes First

• How to Market Portland Peak-3: August, September, October

• DIY vs Hire in Portland ME: 7% PM and a Scarce listings

• Portland ME Shoulder: August Peaks, February Is the Hole

• Portland ME 30-Night Stays: 40% Already Gate the Dates

• Portland vs South Portland: Two Clerks, Two Watch Years

• Who Books Portland Versus a South Portland Beach Stay

• Portland $2.7B Visitor Spend Is Not Host Year 2026

• Complete Visitor's Guide to Portland ME: Old Port, Not a License

• What It Actually Costs to Start a Legal Portland ME STR

• Peaks Island STR: A 40-Unit Cap and a Ferry, Not Old Port

• Portland Voters Said No Three Times. Council Capped Anyway

Frequently Asked Questions

What figure should anchor a Portland, Maine DSCR file?

The $3,887 median month, from AirROI's extract updated 2026-08-08, alongside a $44,929labeled annual figure, ADR of $370, occupancy of 46.2 percent, and RevPAR of $173. Treat the median month as the stress case rather than annualizing a strong peak-season average of about $7,855, which would overstate what the property typically earns.

Why does 46.2 percent occupancy matter for underwriting?

It means roughly half the available nights clear across the year and half don't, and the $173 RevPAR figure already reflects those empty nights. August, September, and October are the peak three months; January, February, and March are the soft stretch, with January the occupancy floor. A file built from a single August calendar export will overstate nights and understate the winter months.

Can an unlicensed Portland property still support a DSCR file?

No. City short-term rentals need a Chapter 6 registration, and a house that can't legally list can't generate the income a DSCR loan is underwriting against. It may still work as a second home or long-term rental, but confirming registration status with Room 307 comes before any coverage conversation, not after.

Does the 293-file cap on Mainland Non-Owner Occupied registrations transfer automatically with a sale?

No, it shouldn't be assumed to. The city's 2026 cap for Mainland Non-Owner Occupied registrations sits at 293, and that number moves with registered long-term rental stock. A buyer should confirm the live registration status directly with Room 307 rather than assuming a seller's existing registration transfers with the deed.

Should a Portland DSCR file reference South Portland's numbers?

No. South Portland is a separate city with its own AirROI extract - a $27,535labeled year, ADR of $265, and 42.9 percent occupancy. Blending or substituting that figure into a Portland file mixes two different municipalities' data and misstates what the actual collateral is likely to earn.

Do citywide or statewide visitor-spending figures belong in a DSCR income calculation?

No. Greater Portland's roughly $2.7 billion in 2023 visitor spending and Maine's statewide $9.2 billion figure describe tourism activity broadly, not booking revenue for a specific short-term rental. Neither figure should appear in a debt-service worksheet alongside the $3,887 median month.

What does the booking pattern look like in this Portland sample?

Average lead time is 63 days and the typical stay is 4.5 nights, with one-night stays making up 27.9 percent of bookings. About 39.9 percent of listings set a 30-plus-night minimum, but that's a booking-policy setting, not proof of actual filled winter occupancy. New York and Boston are the leading guest origin markets.

What does the host composition look like in this sample?

Superhost status covers 71.4 percent of the sample and professional management covers 7.1 percent, with the median cleaning fee around $100. Revenue moved minus 5.9 percent year over year while supply held roughly steady - a modest downward shift worth disclosing rather than hiding behind the headline annual figure.

What penalty applies to an unregistered Portland short-term rental?

A cited $1,000 fine applies to false registration on this market. That penalty, combined with the binary registration requirement itself, means an unlicensed listing should be treated as a shutdown risk in underwriting, not as a minor haircut applied to an otherwise-normal DSCR file.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

A Portland, Maine listing marketed as if new competitors can freely enter the market ignores that most new houses can't list at all under the 2026 non-owner-occupied cap. That limited-supply context is part of the town's real story.

We help Portland hosts write listing copy and pricing around the city's real $3,887 median month and its capped, limited supply, not an assumption of open competition. That context is part of what makes a listing's positioning credible to guests.

Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502.