Mooers Realty Blog

There is a Maine saying that can apply to real estate property sales.

"It is hard telling without knowing". Information that is missing causes confusion, jumping to the wrong conclusion. Which leads to missteps that put things more out of kilter, out of whack. 

Or real estate market information that is outdated is just as bad.

Because not having current, accurate data means garbage in, garbage out.

So misunderstandings in real estate property sales, in life often are caused by missing, wrong or just plain outdated information.

The vital stuff needed to help shape the direction from listing, through marketing to the clear to close memo for the sit down and let's dig in.

To have a real estate closing that concludes the transactions and make a successful transfer of ownership. 

So innocent real estate situations that are spun, come off as someone was black heart sinister.

Folks stop getting along. Working toward the same common goal. The problems start with a fertile imagination, a lack of all the accurate fine points as the real estate deal trudges on through the hoops, chutes and ladders that shape the deal. To a satisfactory conclusion or derailment. 

Good broker, bad broker is another layer of the reaction to what seems to be happening. When nothing could be futher from the truth. Sides are drawn like a court room and "my buyer" "my seller" and fighting for the upper hand is a hostile approach.

Where mediation not litigation keeps the wheels of the real estate deal greased for the easiest momentum. Like a flywheel, energy is needed to keep the gears of a property listing sale moving as effortlessly as possible.

The buyer for a Maine real estate listing has been located through marketing, realistic pricing and the satisfaction because it works.

It fits the needs of the buyer of the property.

But here is a little devil in the details that can creep up and put out the fire of desire that burns within to get to the real estate closing and make the successful property transfer happen.

The personal property, what is inside the real estate listing in Maine.

What about the case of a camp, cottage or second home, an estate that is not empty of personal property?

What can happen to make the real estate sale go sideways?

Giving away what was stated would stay in the property listing.

That letting go of items to the next door neighbor, your brother in law Bob.

The buyer of the property who revists the pending listing for measuring the windows for curtains starts to sense the evaporation.

Of stuff, the extras he or she may not need but that suddenly feels like someone is stealing them. Even if they don't quite own the property yet, the buyer starts to act like they do.

Is getting used to the idea of being the new property owner as the process to buy through the banks, appraisal, legal channels is put through it paces.

Communication, spelling out what stays or goes is critical. The antique light in the dining room that is going to be kept should be removed before the buyer tours the sticks and bricks.

The time to list a Maine real estate property for sale, when is it best to do that?

To get the place on the market for the World to see and consider seriously you hope.

When you have decided you need to make a change, no longer need a property or can not buy another until the last one you own is sold.

That's the best time to list a property for sale in Maine.

Real estate sells year round in Maine. But not if no one knows about the property listing.

So no matter what calendar month we are in hanging on the wall, it is a good time to list. And when you think property buyer, remember that just because you a seller might not want to move in the winter, does not mean buyers are on the same wavelength.

And it takes time to sell, even after you list. Less delay if the property listing is priced realistically and market full throttle.

Houlton Maine is the Shiretown or County seat for Aroostook.

Maine's largest of the sixteen counties is Aroostook. And from the days of the first settlers arriving in 1807, lumbering, farming have been two big reasons to live here.

Outdoor beauty of four seasons living with clean water, fresh air.

No over population continues the tradition of providing very good reasons to head to Maine.

To live in or at least visit and vacation in Houlton Maine.

In this border town with Woodstock New Brunswick to the east in the province of New Brunswick Canada, Houlton has connections that stretch deep beyond the International boundary line.

The Maliseet Indians helped the new settlers on both sides of the Maine, Canadian border too. Without them, a lot of lost settlers might never have dug in and prospered. And put Houlton Maine on the map. Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1820 when the independent state was formed.

Tall timber stands, rich fertile soil, rivers to fuel a town's needs in early Maine town creation.

When the wood lots were cut and cleared to create fields all helped the town of Houlton Maine grow.

So did the railroad that extended from Canada over twenty years before the Bangor and Aroostook train tracks were put into place. The B and A railroad helped open up the Houlton Maine exports to the America markets.

So did the Interstate 95 highway system designed to be the Eisenhower route to move military armaments quickly to and fro. With Lend Lease in World War War II when local Houlton Maine potato farmers hooked on with tractors.

Like most things in the World today, the list of options for buying a Maine home is pretty much endless too.

And it is not always the real estate property buyer picking the best mortgage loan for the home but the other way around.

Because life circumstances like divorce, lay offs, medical down time spent in the break down lane all take their toll. Knock you down and keep you there.

On home loan eligibility success, the ability today to buy or not when you have your heart set on getting under a roof, inside four walls.

The options to buy a Maine home can tighten up and a VA, Maine State Housing loan is one option.

The USDA rural home loan to buy a Maine home is another neat mortgage lending product.

How does the single family USDA RD home loan in Maine work?

Basic Qualifying Information for USDA Loans:

Credit score at or above 620. There can be some exceptions but it might take a little wrenching, looking under the credit hood to repair your credit. To get you bankable and polished up to remove the hard edges that keep you renting, not buying a Maine home.

It all starts with pulling a credit report which once a year in Maine is free. Give them your social security number and watch the machine whirl, purr, spit out the results.

Then peeking at what shows up on that snap shot of you today on paper and chasing down mistakes. That haunt you, follow you and keep you from getting the house keys to a new Maine home.

Everyone needs a helping hand, some assistance and our job is to find a Maine home for sale or other property listing you can afford.

That meets the needs of what you want to do with the real estate in Maine you invest in and use to enhance your life someone.

The goal is not to just list and sell the most expensive Maine homes or to push the label "high end".

No no, it is about having a good selection of all the property listing types, the A to Z of the real estate in Maine for sale.

So any type, location, price range you happen to be needing, we don't have to say go fish. Fresh out. Or to make you wait for us to find something that could meet the need.

All low key, a down to Earth approach with no script. That works best. To learn by listening, taking very good real estate notes. On what you need, and then being a matchmaker, not a high pressure real estate salesperson.

To get you what you are after quickly, making it as pleasurable an experience for everyone.

Time waits for no one. You also can not "sell meat from an empty wagon". Inventory is king, queen, jack and all the other cards combined important. So start by letting us know here at MOOERS REALTY what you are after.

The calls, emails, postal snail mail, texts and office visit lobby questions that come up on the topic of real estate in Maine.

We get some real eye opening doozies. And often the person asking them is in one major hurry and does not want anything but a quick here and now perfect answer to hit and run with thank you very much.

Jack or Jill does not want to be pressed for more information about the real estate involved situation that the question asks warrants for follow up ones right back at them.

And the person with the friend of a friend of a friend often got some of the details or their take for advice in the situation a little mixed up or out of order.

Besides just not having all the facts of the real estate in Maine situation. That prompted the shout out to this Maine broker on this receiving end of the signal.

Patience is a virtue but also a luxury in today's hurry scurry world.

Figuring out the who, what and where in a real estate situation when it is a friend of a friend of a friend can cause hot under the collar to happen. Knowing just enough to be dangerous.

But missing the part of about not always, it depends on this when that happens or is the current problem that affects the rest of the property listing or sale.

The person asking what would I do in a situation like this one is not so cranked when I need to have a little more of the details to give the best answer.

Being kind, helpful are the two qualities anyone needing help wants. But thinking you are making it more complicated than they want but that it is is sometimes hard to swallow.

Texting real estate for sale in Maine information, it is one of many ways MOOERS REALTY gets the word out instantly.

Having kids, staying in touch with them with texting got me in shape for fast paced micro typing.  

Working as a news director in a broadcast media outlet with on air deadlines also helped push the typing proficiency.

With no time to waste diddling around when it was show time to report the news as it happened in the broadcast market place.

Texting real estate information and answers to questions makes it instant, up to date and no delays with text messaging.

No more 9-5 limited waiting around. Real estate buyers looking for local area or property listing information don't want delays. They should not have to kill time or chase down the information on a property listing.

Texting is one more powerful communication tool of many in the real estate marketing arsenal. I bet Captain Kirk's communicator had a slide out keyboard for texting. And we know it was used for lots of helpful things from energizing to replicating a snack on foreign planets boldly going where you and I have never been yet.

I will admit that the screen touch cell phone virtual key boards are not my favorite weapon to reach for but when in a pinch, hand it over.

Heck a tin can and string or carrier pigeon, smoke signals will work if it's all you got or the other end of the signal prefers it. Pick your poison right? Whatever delivery system works best for the buyer or seller. Not moi.

A slide out cell phone with the raised numbers and letters on the keyboard is my tool of choice.

For two thumb back and forth firing off answers to rock responses to text messages on real estate that we receive in a steady stream.

Energy efficient, green homes for sale in Maine.

The property listing request for homes that are healthy spaces for famlies to grow tall and strong is a common query this Maine real estate broker fields daily.

The emails and phone calls, office visits too are from folks that head north from crowded city living.

That want a better way of living and affordable housing that has those triple glazed windows, heat sink interior tile and stone, the fuel miser savings of heat pumps, other solar panel array applications.

Energy independence and housing economy is the overhead of living in a Maine home. Everyone wants that in rural Vacationland.

Green homes in Maine, we lived pretty efficiently long before the frugal lifestyle got a color name applied to it.

Mainers make an art of being frugal not cheap. Growing up on a Maine farm, we were told to be careful with our resources. Shutting lights off, using the southern exposure for illumination and passive solar gain in heating.

Root cellars for canning and preserve storage use to draw from for tasty home made foot supplies over the winter months. Using large gardens to grow what you eat the rest of the three seasons too.

Not heating a space larger than you need and keenly aware of being highly efficient. Anything but wasteful or capricious. We use those open and glass porches, not just doodads for show.

But back to the green homes for sale in Maine. Here is one example of one in town with the successful blend of old style charm and new efficiency.

Check out the link to the green homes for sale in Maine. One prime example of one with over $100,000 invested into it and a sticker property price less than those improvements alone on 35 High Street Houlton Maine.

A fixture in a house sale in Maine. what qualifies for one?

Don't be horse-ing around when it time to talk turkey about fixtures, personal property when selling a Maine home. Does it stay, can it go and what is considered a fixture in a real estate home sale anyway?

The intent with which it was installed, put into place is a big part of the decision on what has to stay or is allowed to go down the road with the seller.

If it is bolted down, permanently attached comes into the discussion too.

Many use these two simple tests above to prove what is or is not a fixture in a real estate home sale.

In my real estate practices class thirty six years ago, the basic definition of a fixture was considered part of the land itself and not a separate piece of property. Whatever was not attached to the property was chattel.

Personal property debates happen if the expectations are not clearly spelled out in a real estate property listing sale. Often the buyer hopes the lawnmower, free standing patio furniture and grill stay.

To be dug up flowers, shrubs, removal of a loved ones remains, we have seen it all.

Including the provision that a future burial of a still alive relative of the present owner can be interned at the family burial plot. Spell it out is the three word command.

Don't leave anything to chance. Up for debate or to become a bone of contention.

If it is Maine farm property being listed, marketed and sold, spell out who gets to harvest the planted crop this fall, the late summer hay after the listing is sold.

The Maine real estate buyer always has a laundry list of "gotta have" items.

But besides the long wish list, the extra one to go with it of "don't wants" and the limitations imposed due to a price range cap for the as good as you can get in the current real estate market inventory, the three L's kick in.

The mantra everyone knows about the three most important aspects of a property listing, of real estate being the location, location, location.

If you were ever on a game show and the guy with the big grin.

Asked the million dollar question about what are the three most important features of a piece of real estate, hard to think of anyone not knowing the answer.

Unless hiding under a rock, or named Rip Van Winkle. Just out of commission for a very long time.

And every real estate market is different. In small rural Maine, the lower priced properties mean don't be looking for a butler's pantry, quartz counter tops or bidets in the bathroom either.

Practical, functional, durable is the order of the day on the low to the ground price tags hanging off the real estate property listings in Maine for sale.

So besides the garden variety items all buyers asks for like is the roof, foundation, the bones of the property structure good, the location of whatever it is comes into the real estate conversation.

Is the basement wet? What are the property taxes? Not many people ask for a swamp in their hunt for Maine land or a house to call home either.

Your Favorite Ice Cream Flavor?

You want to live in Maine, you love the low cost property listings for sale.

Now how to pull it off. If you are not already independently wealthy or have a big fat retirement income to follow you with the relocation to Maine. Let's face it, there is no better place to raise kids, settle down and start a family than in Maine. Or to enjoy all the great unspoiled outdoors of this place called Maine.

But work to pay the bills, even if they are smaller in rural Maine where money does not drive the day to day.

Hard work and becoming more versatile in lots of areas is. Get more for less is what Maine is all about and the friendly, family first folks you pitch in with to make a neat living experience are all in the same boat.

How to stretch the dollar to be able to stay in Maine.

Not leave looking for better jobs or higher wages out of state where the quality of life goes the other way.

So working a remote job, telecommunity online but being able to living in Maine. That is the dream of many. The Internet has made that possible but the "last mile" of connectivity has been the stumbler in some areas.

Here is more on Internet providers in Maine.

You need the connection to ride the glass tube, copper wire or to sail through the Maine wireless channels online.

Lots of perks when you live in a home in Houlton Maine, are at a border crossing for New Brunswick Canada.

Taking advantage of the healthy US dollar exchange rate with the loonies, toonies and the other Canadian currency swap for goods or services. That's one big one. 

At the time of the blog post, the exchange rate for a Canadian dollar in the US is .71.

I remember buying a Seadoo in Canada when the currency exchange rate was closer to .60 cents on the US dollar.

They did not sell them in my hometown of Houlton Maine. Rick Bietti who I bought the last one from moved south. He is no longer the home town local option. So heading elsewhere with a clean conscience. I can still sleep nights wearing my Chamber of Commerce hat pulled snug and sitting on straight. Am forgiven for sneaking out of town across the border into New Brunswick Canada to reel in a bargain.

As a side note, Reid McNelly's son in Centerville New Brunswick was the Seadoo salesman. His dad worked for mine on our Maine farm and used to travel over daily in his VW Bettle bug car.

Small world and when we get asked is it dangerous living that close to Canada we just smile.

We are all related on both sides of the US - Canadian International border dotted line division. My two boys played a lot of minor hockey games on Canadian ice eh? We ran into relatives all the time standing up and watching the small black circle go back and forth. I learned about much in arena conversations eating poutine and following the puck back and forth across the blue and red lines under the ice. 

The steady decline of the two US and Canada "dollars" due to low fossil fuel barrel costs. How big a part energy prices play on the economic climate in the land of the red maple leaf.

I am about as close as you can get to Atlantic Canada, the St John River, the Atlantic Ocean whether parked on the US or Canadian side of the International boundary line.

The downside of a lower value currency on what Canadians shop for on this side of the border is it hurts Maine merchants. Who rely on the cross border trade traffic big time.

No matter what color or kind of currency for the cash and carry. Both sides need cash register bells ringing loudly. Thank you very much. Come again please. Value for what is spent goes up and down when your dollar or loonie gains or loses buying power steam. 

Feast or famine just like Maine farming.

Where a good year is one you break even, or where someone else had a disaster, a crop failure far far away. With bad luck and poor weather messing up the simple farmstead way of life.

But the set back elsewhere. It creates the opportunity to send your produce, farm product to wherever the down and out farmer used to send his agriculatural wares.

Tree growth in Maine, your own a timber tract of land acreage and want to reduce the property taxes.

How does that tree growth program work, how long does it last and what is a land management and harvest plan all about you wonder. What is it and why is it a good idea to maximize the health of your woodlot and at the same time get it into a tree growth property tax reduction plan program?

We have blog posted about land, the Maine tree growth program before.

But things change with the regulations and requirements for tree growth have too so being on your toes is needed. To avoid misteps and deep regreats that can be costly and are so so avoidable.

Lots of myths about the tree growth program too like if I enter the program can I still cut the woods I own?

The tree growth plan is just that. A strategy to maximize the growth of the "tree farming" and at the same time take into consideration the wildlife in the acreage. The soil erosion that impacts the environment if a cutting operation does not "tread lightly".

Respect for the watershed that every woodlot empties into if streams or other waterways cross them. The steep terrains and poor timber cutting practices will cause fish to choke with the silt, soil washed into the previous natural resources.

More on soil erosion caused from your acitivity that can be good or bad for your neighboring property owners. The Maine lake or pond a few miles away.

The property listings in Maine, the real estate for sale.

That is a big part of the discussion at our beehive, the kitchen where we serve up what we list, market, sell (repeat). But lots of ground has to be covered about the area the property listings in Maine populate.

Because not all our buyers are not all up to speed about the area.

The out of state, out of the country Maine real estate buyer does their home work from afar. They search online for local community information. Hard.

In larger areas of Maine, the handful of cities there are paid professionals stocking the information shelves.

In small Maine rural towns, do an online search and not much comes up.

Not because the areas are ho hum and sleepy.

But because all the flavor of the life there is just not posted in prose or photos, video loops. Not arranged on four color brochures that sit on slanted display shelves in tourist information centers around New England.

For years the magic of these small Maine towns has been a best kept secret.

That's why we buckle down and take on the task. To be the local cub reporter, wearing the chamber of commerce hat. Rolling out the red VIP carpet welcome wagon.

To blog post about Maine, the local area way of life. Same thing with videos for local Maine community events. And you have already discovered this platform, venue to learn about more thant just property listings for sale in Maine.

For starters, every real estate market like weather forecasts for different areas of the country are way way different.

Same principles in play but every real estate market does not operate the exact same. Price range has something to do with it.

High priced, lots of zero places in the property listing markets have layers of players. The price tag supports the stagers, brings in the HOA (home owners associations) and talk about zoning regulations.

City real estate compared to rural country property peddling, the two venues are night and day for complex vs keep it simple.

Also besides the different set of features asked for, expected in the various property price brackets on the MLS inventory, other area questions unique to the market come up. Like tell me about leased land, how does that work.

Or owner financing Maine land, explain that from A to Z will you Mr Real Estate Broker?

So I can not speak for other real estate markets outside my playing field in Northern Maine, but when the phone rings, emails buzz in or a text vibrates. Usually the first question is what are the property taxes? On this one, that one.Then how long on the market, why are they selling?

So let's talk about property taxes on Maine real estate.

I have seen a buyer of a home pick a property listing thirty miles out of their way to save a hundred dollars on real estate taxes. It is that important to the buyer to find lower property taxes.

Sticking around or bolting out of the Maine home for sale door, to the real estate on the market hunting for a buyer?

Should the Maine home seller stay or go? This question is batted around the real estate circles with professionals usually says leave please.

The agent or broker will take it from here thank you very much.

My take on stay or go is it depends. On the dynamics of the market, the location away from where the buyer lives out of state and if the seller helps or hurts the process. A Maine farm takes more time to tour, like a small business listing than just a home on a small lot.