Public landings, boat launches and access on Maine lakes, does every waterbody have one?

It would be nice if they did and were all clearly marked. But back it up a tad. Whoa. Let's talk about the Great Ponds Act of Maine.

A Maine great pond is defined in as "any inland body of water which in a natural state has a surface area in excess of 10 acres".

"Or any inland body of water formed artificially, or increased with surface area larger than 30 acres.

Except if one single Maine land owner completely surrounds the artificially formed or increased inland body of water".

The "great pond" legalese was penned and carried over back before Maine became a state. Prior to 1820, Vacationland was part of Massachusetts.

The original language, intended purpose of the case law was to protect timber harvests, to preserve shoreland areas. Establish do's and don't's for the locals to practice in Maine land use. To avoid squabbles, develop standards.

Here is a list of public landings for Maine lakes, ponds, waterbodies.

I have sold properties where a lake on the property was under 10 acres, totally surrounded by one Maine land owner. And who wanted to change the name of the waterbody. Because their young daughter had died of cancer.

And the thought to make the lake designated on maps changed to the daughter's name. Last I knew, the lake name was not changed, we sold the property and the move got lost in the shuffle.

The laundry wish list of gotta have, don't want carried and created by a Maine real estate property buyer.

What is on the numbered list in order of importance? Much different in rural small town Maine real estate markets compared to urban population centers.

For starters, worries about crime and looking for beefed up security does not make an appearance on the Country Mouse's home hunting list.

But the City Mouse's for sure expects, rewards places with security cameras, guards, gates and dead bolts. Chain link is your friend.

In the land of looking over your shoulder and carrying a taser.

Fear is a strong emotion and protecting your loved ones, yourself is a need to meet. In real estate property listing selection too.

Keeping up with the Jones, status and one of a kind to stand out also is not on the rural real estate buyer's property list requirements. The shift instead to easy to heat, updates to roofing, plumbing, electrical is a logical one.

When money is tight, spending is done with impulse control.

Careful thought to buy value, get lasting and something to call home that is practical.

Maine's is a state of frugal residents, simple living with folks not out to impress.

Wasting money on the flash not seen. Not liking debt means let's double up on the payments for the house mortgage Martha. To be debt free.

Going without something to call attention to yourself for attention means hold your Ego horses. Instead, let's practice moderation and make sure if we do spend money, it is worth the return.

Life estate, the property has been sold but you the real estate seller stay on board.

Still retain use of the real estate after the listing sale. But upon death or signing off your right for possession of the property, the place space that was retained, it's useage goes to the record owner.

We run into life estates in cases where the real estate owner is elderly.

The Nana, Grampy who wants to sell.

Get out from under the maintenance, the property expense.

But still call it home sweet home.

Like they never left for the real estate closing or had to pass the keys please. Staying for the rest of their life on Earth. If the place was sold with a life estate retained.

In the property say a Maine farm they just sold but retained use.

Until death. Or until having to move to a round the clock facility. Preparing for the final demise. The last ride.

Sometimes thre is a rent that is fixed, stays the same in the life estate real estate property sale.

Other times no monthly rent but the actuary tables kick in. Doing the math that if the owner become renter is say ninety six years old. The chart says the this much extra life remains based on the numbers. Like insurance salesmen for life products work with daily. Just math but involving people.

Over the years you have slow but sure, steadily funded your retirement account.

For well, the day of when you hopefully make it to the Golden Years of your life. But along the way toward that point, it can be tempting to see all that money. To think of why not use it to invest in a home?

Especially when divorce happens, thinking of renting with the split time sharing, raising the kids.

But wishing there was a way to buy and not wait.

To create the home to continue the childhood traditions, memory making. To get those kids healed, raised, launched successfully out of the household nest.

Retirement money account withdrawals to buy a house, etc by using the what some plans offer called the "hardship allowance".

Too easy, not a good idea. But even bigger than all that. What does the IRS say about tapping into a the saved for retirement day fund?

No one home in Maine, it happens.

Vacant Maine houses are easy to show but with videos, all the details, the exposure is round the clock easy. Not just to local Maine real estate buyers either.

But sometimes as an agent, broker, the property listing owner is a model one. You don't have to make any suggestions. They are already doing it right to help a property sale quickly.

Neat, clean, and not home much happens in Maine real estate property sales.

Running the roads with kids in sporting or musical activities.

Or the owners both work a lot, only sleep at the Maine home.

Don't put many miles on the property. And maybe because of a second home on a Maine lake. Maybe a Florida winter home because the sellers are gypsies, snow birds.

These kind of property owners in Maine real estate sales are great neighbors.

No one home. Low mileage property for wear and tear. Easy to show because hardly used. No one to bother when an actual walk through needs to happen. No delay means quicker Maine real estate closing too.

When a home in Maine for sale is real estate odor free or the smells are pleasant ones, that helps the marketing tremendously.

Real estate listing, selling is emotional, and involves all the senses the buyer brings to the property walk through. Like most things in life, it is tons of little stuff that adds up to the thumbs up or down.

Properties in Maine come with smells.

And despite the logic of sanitize, got to be squeaky clean. To make everything bland pale white in color appearance, neutral too in smells. Odors, they happen. Because people live in homes for sale in Maine.

The Maine house is the vessel where life happens for the property owner, their families.

So fish fry on a Friday, the fragrance of home cooked food can enhance the walk through. Because how the current owner uses the home, enjoys it. The next Maine home buyer will too.

The smell of a crackling fire in the formal living room during a walk through. A fragrance pine or first Christmas tree radiating its scent.

The sound of a Grandfather's clock keeping perfect time as the sun beams in the bay window through sheer curtains.

Canning, preserving what is grown in the backyard.

Baked beans because it is Saturday. Which means brown bread, home made potato salad, fresh chopped cole slaw, red snapper hot dogs.

Dirty smells, cat litter that has been neglected is not the desired benchmark for odors though. Nor is anything that makes your potential buyer for the Maine home have watery eyes.

Thank goodness everyone we deal with in real estate in Maine buying and selling is not a clone.

We all know what relationships are like when one side is trying to make the other a carbon copy of themselves.

So in our job listing, marketing, transfering Maine property listings, much of what we do is crowd control.

Making sure everything is spelled out and layed face up on the table.

To avoid misunderstandings that do no one any good.

Assumptions are very dangerous and usually out of date or way off the mark for accuracy.

Off what is really cooking in the shake and bake. But the truth will set you free is what I read. On the front wall of a church in Houlton Maine.

Over the altar mentally tracing the letters. Thinking about the sign painter on planks, the metal scaffolding.

High in the air painting the block lettering hand scribed years ago. Read now when my feet would not touch the floor while sitting, reflecting on the sermon out in the pews. A few rows back and quiet as a well, church mouse.

Real estate in Maine days start with a thought out plan.

But flexibility, creative solutions have to be an agent or broker's pair of shadows all day, into the evening hours. Because what we do is not just empty houses being bought and sold.

There are buyers and sellers, real live people.

Connected  to the real estate in Maine exercise.

With feelings attached to property listing and selling process.

Real estate is emotional.

In good, bad, even ugly ways. The newly wed couple we had a closing with Friday on a home in Houlton Maine just sold is a good feeling. Not sharped edged or contentious. Quick closing period shuffling the paperwork helps.

But being involved in ugly divorces where a Maine home has to be sold. By a pair of property owners not so wild about each other. It all take takes tact. Patience, understanding, empathy to keep everyone on task. Not fist fighting or mud slinging.

The ability to referee fairly and set a common set of expectations in a Maine real estate home sale, any transfer of property, is ao necessary.

From a pair untying the difficult knot often not so skilled in agreeing on anything these days. But needing your help just the same. To develop trust in your abilities as a Maine real estate agent or broker.

Charged with guiding, navigating the sale of property, whatever it on the chopping block to buy or sell.

Real estate videos for marketing properties, showcasing the listings. It is what buyers on the go want.

Video influences who sellers pick to list and promote their properties. And the Maine listings themselves deserve real video show and tell for the ease in exposure.  It's what real estate buyers want, sellers deserve. A simple, helpful show and tell real estate video.

Having a video increases the chances of a front page Google search engine search display by over fifty times.

Emails with a video link get tapped approximately 96% of the time too.

Buyers of real estate like, want, expect video for their area information, the property listings for sale.

It is all about expanding the reach, to increase the frequency so more folks get inside, all around the real estate listings for sale.

And also for that brand new to the area buyer to learn as much as possible about the community the property is in. BEFORE they even arrive in town or step foot through the door to what is for sale.

Video for real estate makes it "already seen, heard and toured the place." Late at night, no matter where the buyer is or how crappy the weather. It is on demand open house touring, help yourself to the real estate videos.

Videos get the buyers into more properties.

Videos help them make better home buying decisions. No delay in getting in is striking while the marketing iron is red hot. Before the buyer's interest cools off and other properties with video turn their head and tickle their fancy.

Whoa, not talking about someone in the time out corner. But today it is hard for many to stay focused, sitting still for very long.

Sometimes because of overbooked lives we marathon. Other times because of the need to make sure you are not missing out at having it all. So thirteen hours in a colorful, lightweight portable chair.

Wearing sunglasses, suncreen protective lotion.

Like a happy toe tapping, gently swaying, humming raisin.

Under the blue skies just soaking up the mix of tunes, rays, refreshment.

Totally relaxed. No anxious feelings to get up and go, somewhere, anywhere. That brand of being antsy often creeps into a daily life of folks on the hand gallop run. But not at the Fort Fairfield Maine venue for one popular musical event. Because you want to be stuck in park for the day.

This weekend there is a winter weekend of Bluegrass Music. But the really big "shoe" as Ed Sullivan would promote and remind. The big event is in the summer in Aroostook County Maine. July 23-26, 2015 is this year's day span for the Northern Maine bluegrass festival.

This morning, I talked with a couple coming out of a local diner where I pull up a counter stool for breakfast. Now that the four kids are grown. The wife in this pair told me she spends thirteen hours in a lawn chair every summer.

It happens, awkward moments in real estate conversations.

When everything is sailing along beautifully. Then a pregnant pause and next the other shoe is dropped.

The buyer for a property listing you first meet shares he has been looking for eight years.

Can not find what he wants.

As the real estate agent or broker, the take away from the comment leads to a couple more questions.

That beg to be asked. Why is it that after eight years, and not so favorable comments about many real estate agents or brokers dealt with one by oneso poorly is that?

Often the explanation of how badly our brethren real estate professionals did to try and serve them creates a gut feeling. Shows soon I am about to hop on the list of disappointments in this buyer's set of peeper's cross-hairs.

Because the expectations of the limited price range with the "gotta have" list is way way too high. Out of whack. And it boils down to like a doctor or lawyer asked for help, you can not assist them. The buyer or seller won't hear of it, even if the advice given is the best we can do in this particular real estate situation.

We get the call at the Maine real estate office about land a property owner is thinking of putting under a tree growth plan.

Should I do it and beyond the lower property taxes, will I regret it later he wonders.

The biggest concern a real estate agent or broker has is making sure there is an out parcel not included in the tree growth woodlot plan.

A building spot that will soil test for a septic waste water disposal system. With an approved design that makes it possible, allows the new land owner to get a permit. For construction of a structure or two on the ten acres of more woodlot being managed.

The small out parcel not covered by the forestry management plan standing out clear as a bell. Like it is wearing blaze orange. So if the owner of the Maine woodlot decides he wants to sell, there will not big a stiff penalty for taking the land out of tree growth to be able to do it.

Or a penalty because the new owner has different plans and wants to clear large sections of the woods under the management forestry plan.

Or to build a cute cabin in that bluff overlooking the river with the big wide open view. But that was not excepted out by the forester. The licensed Maine forester who did the forestry management plan. Has a lot to consider beyond walking the woodland. Putting it on paper what needs doing to the forestry land to comply with regulations, recommendations.

The Maine home buyers are in love with the property, the place fits their needs like two glass slippers.

But something happened after saying "I do", signing the purchase and sale agreement. And along the way to the clear to close memo being circulated.

Time is one of the biggest factors. Like a patient with health problems, Maine home sales have ailments, aches and pains.

To not ignore.

To  address quickly  that crop up during the real estate operation.

What factors make the real estate in Maine home sale teeter and fail?

Found another place that the buyer likes better for less money is a real head turner sale derailer. The long list of have to fix, replace, correct this this and that hurts the attraction spell mesmerizing a Maine home buyer  that puts a place on layaway. A Maine home to go under contract and leaves the market temporarily. But may not stay there MIA long enough to clear the hurdles for a real estate closing.

The length and what's on that list to cure for property problems, the associated costs is often a bone of contention.

The buyer may have no money, or motivation to apply the skills for what needs correcting. Thinks the seller should pick up the tab.

The seller of the Maine home could be strapped for cash. Thinks the same in reverse because he, she is selling "as is". Which is not good enough to clear the Maine bank secondary mortgage market hurdles to wrap the package.

Land for sale in Maine, because last check they stopped making any more of it.

And because with the big supply of property acreage in Maine, we are able to offer large parcels for little amounts of money in the exchange.

Land in Maine is low cost because the further into the Pine Tree State you go, the trails get a littl more narrow. 

Less traveled, unspoiled and the people fewer in number who live in these rural parts are extra special unique.

The country way of life includes protecting the environment. Passing it on with the same respect and good stewardship we all were taught growing up. Careful to not harm the waterways, aware of what causes erosion that chokes fish. Hurts the waterfront habitat.

And when the population of wildlife outnumbers the local residents of a small Maine town, you think about what is best for those critters.

Kinder to woodlots in Maine too.Easy does it with the surroundings and tramping lightly. Carry in, carry out in camping and not messing up the Maine land and what is growing on it, swimming in the water around it.

You want to buy a Maine woodlot, something with some timber on the land up north.

Like soils in Maine, woodlots, acreages of timber are different too. The drainage and lay of the land, how the woodlot was last cut and when.

The mills in the area and price they are currently paying. Up or down.

All make the timing to buy a Maine woodlot to require a little skill.

Some thought about when is the next harvest of the wooded sections due to happen on this Maine forested land?

That scheduling and who to use in the cutting operation are all intrical parts of the property listing purchase consideration for each and every Maine woodlot.

More and more woodlot management questions come up and there is nothing like a current Maine land forestry report to know the true health of the timberstand.

A selective harvest to remove individual trees from a crowded stand helps keep the cycle going. The one of regeneration and maintaining an uneven-age stand of tree species.

The goal ? To maximize the yield when you thinking of the Maine wooded land areas as if it was "tree farming". It is. A crop of trees please to super size. With the wish to maximize the per cord increase in the acreage of the Maine wooded land. By applying tried and tested sound forestry practices.

The move to Maine.

What is good to know in the transition, the relocation in your moving to Maine side step? The one that folks who never stepped foot in Maine sure are full of information they don't mind feeding the ears on each side of your head.

Well if you plan to plant yourself in the upper right hand corner of the country, the Northern most tip of New England, a job here.

You need less money to pull it off in Maine.

Because money is not the end all.

What is important is not tied to a dollar sign. Not holding you hostage to have secured and control a King's ransom to be especially comfortable in Maine.

Or a source of income would be smart to line up before your move to Maine.

To knock down the day to day overhead expenses. Free you up from worry. Income or a nest egg of savings in the Maine relocation move. That follow you like a shadow would be another pretty sound piece of advice.

To have in place as you cross the big green bridge into Eliot, Kittery. Southern most parts in this place with the space all four seasons called Maine.

Rent purchase, option to buy properties in Maine is a common daily inquiry made at our real estate office.

Over the phone, thru emails, the visits to the lobby of the agency, Where  we hear the plea. Like a child's game of Fish, "got any rent with option to buy homes in Maine?"

No one likes wasting money on rent that is like cash in the trash.

It's like leaving on running water wasteful and you never get ahead or start the investment of home ownership.

The binoculars raised to scan the property listing horizon slowly.

To study the landscape to make it work for Maine housing seeker.

The rent purchase to own, ease into the Maine property listing buying that works well from the buyer's perspective.

Because often credit has taken a hit. Just not able to get a Maine bank home loan. Employment is iffy at best. But the rent to own home buyer not wanting to just move in. Then shortly thereafter get the tap on the shoulder to head right back out that door.

It is expensive to hook up all the utilities, get the furniture moved in, the family used to the home sweet rented don't get too comfortable home in Maine.

And the unknown of how long will we be here when there is a real estate for sale sign speared in the front lawn outside the property listing.

But for the seller, property owner who needs another place to call home, the long term rent purchase option may not be the best maneuver. If there is a mortgage on the place, a little clause in the fine print can kick in.

We write a lot of blog posts in Maine and the ones on saving money go through the roof for views, clicks.

Like one awhile back about heating fuel oil assistance in Maine helpful links, information. But it is time for an update on help for heating your home in Maine this winter.

Because keeping kids in an apartment, household, elderly people warm while the snow piles up in Maine is pretty important stuff.

Not to be neglected, overlooked.

Before it is an emergency for Maine heat oil assistance and the tank is bone dry, temperatures diving, dipping lower.

Help with your winter home fuel utility bills is serious stuff when the northeast wind howls. Snows piles up deeply.

And the structure housing you, your loved ones is screaming all over for  inadequate insulation.

To make it more efficient to heat and stay cooler when it is the hottest day of July in a Maine home.

We have blog posted before on  Joe's oil, heating assistance for low income individuals.

And content about lowering fuel consumption, the best place to start after tightening up a house. To switch it up to what technology has brought us.

For the long term solution to easing the problem of staying warm. How to pay for it year in and out in a cold weather state with a winter season like Maine. The one up here in the upper right hand corner of the country.

Restaurants, diners, greasy spoons and public suppers, the places to eat in Houlton Maine.

You are some kind of hungry, could eat a horse while in Northern Maine.

It happens at least three times each day and this time you find yourself in Houlton Maine. Wondering about places to eat in a new land with fresh surroundings.The purpose of this blog post is to spell out the A to Z of places to eat, Houlton restaurants, diners, take outs.

(I will double bad to update and add or remove the options to save you time and to know all the places in Houlton Maine to eat choices.)

What are there for restaurants in Houlton Maine?

You can hear your stomach grumbling. Getting light headed too and better sit down to eat or grab some take out food in Aroostook County's oldest town. There are many dining in or take out eating options.

Don't let the small town size population, all this natural space of Northern Maine fool you.

Plenty of out to eat in Houlton Maine dining options to please the fussiest palate or hearty appetite.

Houlton has full blown restaurants, take out fast food outlets and plenty of home grown community dining options.

In the area, church suppers, farmer's museum and snow sled club spreads all possibilities depending on your schedule.

The suppers put on around the calendar year, you can break bread with the locals, learn about the area you are parked in. That works best for some very educational and lively meal conversation from the folks who live here. It is how you learn the history, customs, get directions and meet the people up close and personal. What's that? (Whispering) Oh sure, I'll pass the ketchup. No problem. You are welcome.

These local volunteer cooks all work hard putting on a feast for a King and Queen.

Usually the supper for a good cause, to fund a local project or help someone in a tough spot health wise or who lost a home in a fire, etc. Our Monday noon lunch meeting at the Rotary Club of Houlton at the Watson Hall is like that. The cost $8 if you are a Rotarian.

What to do when you the real estate in Maine buyer or seller or both is just not ready?

When the idea of a closing is a ways off because another home needs to be sold out of state.

Or the credit score is a little light, messed up. Needs to be squared away tidy. Along with other loose wires under the hood up of the buyer's financial idle ride.

The one that gets them to the real estate closing.

Or keeps them locked out.

Stalled, in the breakdown lane with the rumble strip to the left.

As the loudly ticking clock keeps perfect time. The sun rises, sets. Calendar months are "X"ed off, turned up or torn off and thrown away.

Waiting for things to clear up, come around so a real estate sale can take place eventually can be frustrated.

Timing is everything in life. In real estate that is part of so many facets of a person's day to day. So if you are not ready, browse, search, kick some tires. It's more than okay to look. As often as you want scan the new to the market listings.