Should I buy a new home before I sell my old house?
Buying and selling your house at the same time?
The need for two master bedrooms in a home may not be for the reasons you think.
The polite habit of giving up the best bedroom for your house guests and retreating elsewhere would not be needed. If there was a second master bedroom with its own bath, you the home owner would not have to vacate and retreat to the cramped back bedroom. Because that kind of swanky comfortable could quickly wear out the welcome of the folks from away who decide to stay on and on longer.
They say company is like fish. It can start to smell after a few days. No matter which side of the family the house guests are related to in the home away from home, we've got company experience. 
A second master bedroom is catching on in home building house plans for lots of reasons.
The King and Queen in the home might have health problems that interfere with a good night's sleep. You know how grumpy you and I are if the rise and shine is after a night of tossing and turning. Counting sheep pretty much all night long.
If Dad snores or likes to read detective novels long into the night, if Mom is a night owl and watching murder mysteries while her mate is trying to saw logs causes a delay for the visit from the sandman. Or the queen of the house sadly develops a hiatal hernia that means the bottom footer of the bed has to be jacked up like the back end of a 1960's muscle car, the two situations clash. No easy remed sharing the same bed or setting up twins. It can cause discomfort for both of the home owners. So the remedy could be a pair of master bedrooms. No one person gets the penthouse quarters in the coin toss, both do. In vacation homes, all the brothers and sisters want equal digs. Mr. Carpenter, construct more super sized master bedrooms please.
Elderly parents moving into to live under the same roof line need larger than average bedrooms.
They have deserved the right to have a special master bedroom and not be crammed into the back bedroom with no window, missing a closet and located pretty much as far away from the nearest bathroom as possible. That won't work with a walker or poor eye sight in the middle of the night one hundred yard dash or crawl. Some have breathing machines to place in the already tight for space bedroom area. Expand the walls please. Don't fence me in.
The senior citizens should get a master bedroom just as plush as the home owner because they are helping to swing the house payment by subsidizing living expenses. Or the Golden Girls set up in Florida all should have equally nice appointed and just as large master bedroom retreats.
Relocation, moving to Maine.
The needs of someone who is selling or has successfully sold their home out of state and who is moving to a small rural Maine town. Each person wonders about the FAQ and their own special formulated list of questions. Much of the planning before the move to Maine relocation happens using videos.
Before everything, the desire to pick up, pack up and head out to somewhere is the all important decision.
Making sure are you ready, can you do this, are there any doubts.
Nothing is worse than developing a case of seller's remorse letting go of your old home which often has to happen before making the move.
Lots of questions roll around in their head of real estate out of town property buyers with anxious thoughts about what should I be doing to prepare in the relocation, moving to Maine.
How do I find out about all the local information, the contact numbers, the best route to take to save time, money, aggravation. Local insider tips from someone who lives and knows their way around the community from years of experience is a valuable thing. But not if it is only shared when a real estate buyer or seller darkens the agency door.
One of the blog post considerations in the round robin of what to share is always asking myself a question or two. What would I need to know if I was not from this area? If I did have any frame of reference or a local relative or other resource to tap into the information? I like to think of the folks using our media production products as travelers and not just tourists. Although the interest to relocate, move to Maine usually starts with a simple vacation. And then year after year returning to Maine to continue the tradition or exploring to discover all the wonder of Vacationland.
The testimonial page on your real estate website.
Not many folks like a braggart who flaunts their real estate services or any products with hust a little too much swagger.
professional.Give me advice to guide the process please.
Confidence comes from a job well done and publicly displayed by others before you using this real estate firm.
(Exception: Luxury real estate customer reviews like the copy and plush imagery, videos in the real estate presentation are over the top stilted and high brown snarky.)
Maine REALTOR, if you are listing your home for sale should the real estate agent or broker handling the sale be wearing a blue and gold "R" lapel pin?
Like Rotary International that was started to add some ethic training and accountability for early business folks in Chicago, lots of trade organizations started up about the same time to tame the lawlessness and wide open shoot from the hip approach to many business dealings.
member of the National Association of REALTORS real estate trade association. The terms as President of the Aroostook Council of the Maine REALTORS group showed me the value of membership.
Buying land in Maine, top mistakes to avoid building your ME home. What to look out for when building a house, your home from scratch.
This blog post also considers the top mistakes to avoid making when you build your own home in Maine. First the Maine land.
Like people the soils are different on house lots or larger property acreages.
And the first rule of real estate everyone knows about the three location, location, location mantra. That little ditty reminds under everything is the land. And where it is on the planet is everything when building a home.
Scrimp somewhere else but make the location everything. It is so true that the land location, the how it lays in the terrain and setting is everything to the future home owner. Their enjoyment is tied to the location times three.
What is happening on the adjacent lots, the property across the street or road from the Maine land where you want to build?
Will the house you have in mind fit the flavor of the other houses already constructed? Or are there any other houses in sight?
In Maine you can easily purchase a couple hundred acres of land and the issue of how's the neighborhood goes away.
What is planned for your development on vacant Maine land for the best finished structure. That all goes into the selection of the best possible house site or acreage for your Maine home.
What is in your view, the orientation to the southern exposure sun?
Where are you toying with placing the improvements on this Maine land? Does the house, the garage, septic system, big garden, tennis court or swimming pool, horse stable, etc all go together like a puzzle where you don't have to force the pieces?
Next building permits, HHE 200 soil tests for private septic systems leach field designs are needed on your Maine land. Unless served by muncipal water and sewer.
Every municipality is different on what is required and believe it or not there are itty bitty Maine towns that don't require building permits. Not sloppy, just not needed because zip for development. You don't worry about sprawl in a small rural Maine town.
Some of these small burgs or plantations that are more like settlements run everything through the Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC).
The majority of folks who growl about LURC, now LUPC are ot the out of staters building on Maine land buyers. Ironically they are used to heavy duty zoning and layers of players. And building around our precious waterfront thought all those regulations and requirements would be missing heading north up into Maine.
See the local officials before you plow in to the construction and then are told hold it, you are missing some vital paperwork from town hall.
No private mortgage insurance (PMI), no down payment using your veterans eligibility certificate to buy a house.... Two pretty darn good reasons for going after a VA home loan.
Are you in the market to purchase a Maine home and in the dark on the best mortgage loan to fit your finances and match the home of your dreams? Considering a VA home loan may be the best mortgage product out there to lock and load for the shock and awe soldier. Keep your head down, your socks dry and skip the step about crawling on your belly like a reptile under barbed wire. At ease... VA home loans explained from A to Z in this real estate blog post.
My Dad was a veteran, a tail gunner in a B-24 squeezed tight in the back end of the Liberator four engine aircraft during World War Two. I have two older brothers who served and are veterans.
Part of the benefits that are many to being a veteran is your ability to use a VA eligibility certificate to buy a home in Maine. But who is a veteran. For years I was told that serving in the National Guard did not mean you were able to get a VA home loan. So let's thrash out who qualifies for a VA loan.
For starters, the all important discussion about who exactly is eligible for a VA mortgage home loan?
What's it take to qualify. It starts with your answers to a few simple questions. Can you say yes to any one of the following questions to determine VA home loan eligibility?
1) Were you on active duty for at least 90 consecutive days during wartime?
2) Have you served at least 181 days of active duty during peacetime?
3) Did you serve in the National Guard or Reserves for more than 6 years?
4) Are you a widower or widow of a military service member who died either in the line of duty or as the result of an active-duty service-related injury or disability?
How's the real estate market, is this a good time to sell my home in Maine?
What is my home worth? Is this the best time to buy a property? Study of the local real estate market in Maine, the snapshot changes like any investment right?
It's a simple math exercise with bar graph pipes and lines going up, down, sideway. The activity report to show the real estate market report numbers.
Maine has sixteen counties and they do not all behave the same just like kids. Link to county by county real estate listing activity. At the time of hunting, pecking this blog post, Maine has 16,224 active listings for sale. 3069 of them are under contract with a sale pending status. 2041 is the number of new listings in 2018 and 1872 properties have been sold this year to date. So here is what's cooking in the current market. 
To look at the state of Maine to see what's for sale and where, hit this helpful search link.
My home town of Houlton Maine has 102 listings and that is not just houses but all types of property.
Raw Maine land, waterfront listings, multi unit rental housing are all in that figure to break out if needed. Not every property buyer is after the same thing. Like a menu, everyone does not select the same ole same ole.
It is interesting how many single family or condo or land listings populate one market in Maine and the supply of inventory in other markets is not the same mix amounts.
Prices for properties is a big difference too. A average house price of $70,000 could increase to $210,000 depending on the real estate property location in Maine. Maine is one big vast state. It is eight hours long. More if you are a turtle.
The maps, zoning on property in Houlton Maine.
Taking the issue to the zoning board of appeals when an exemption to permitted uses is needed all takes time with no guarantee of the outcome.
There is nothing better than looking up online or leafing through the zoning plan. Seeing okay, fine and dandy for the use. The zoning plan for a small town does allow just what you intend to do with the land location and structures planted on top.
Small Maine towns don't have home owner's associations (HOA), no snarky layers of zoning regulations or bylaws as a rule. That restrict the use of the real estate big time. In unorganized townships, plantations there is LURC, the land use regulation commission to approve the do's and don'ts when local planning and zoning boards are missing. On the 250' zone back from and around your Maine waterways, there is shoreland zoning regulations to wrestle with on new construction.
When your structures were built before the the lake front zoning became law, you are grandfathered in. But when it comes time to hope to add on or to replace a deck with something bigger, to repair a boathouse, whatever. It starts and ends with reading over current shore land zoning regulations.
Your home for sale needs a real estate buyer.
Just one buyer they say is all it takes. But why is the property listing lingering on the market? It does not wear ten foot pole marks. You think it is the best house for sale on the planet bar none. You the seller are kinda perplexed at the delay in the real estate sale.
Here are a dozen reasons your home for sale is not headed to a slide the keys, pass the check property closing.
#1 - First, foremost, the price for the home for sale is not in line with others in the local market. There have been recent real estate sale of places pretty darn similiar to your home for less money. There is a healthy supply of homes just like it that are priced lower than your listed price. 
#2 - Marketing of the home for sale is missing or barely has a pulse. It is like winking at a girl in the dark. The results are poor when only the neighbor on each side of your home, the one living across the street know your house is for sale.
The marketing has to be way way stronger than just attracting a local real estate buyer too.
Bigger marketing pool, means more fish swimming in it to find your buyer quick and easy. The one buyer who is ready, willing and able to buy today. If they like it, if it fits their housing needs. Your real estate agent has to have fire in their belly passion to push the property, to market it's features to the hilt. Full throttle, hang on we're headed to a real estate closing attitude causes home sales.
#3 - The longer an over priced home for sale hangs around the real estate market, shelf life, or property listing mold begins to develop. Why isn't it selling, there must be something wrong the folks out in the online Internet audience wonder.
Often the only out of whack feature of the property is the too high a price tag it wears.
I have had a home seller says the reason his house did not sell was because it was too low a price with his last two real estate agents. Believing that low real estate prices scare away home buyers. I have never ever seen a lower than the market value price for a home that has to sell fast keep people away. The marketing makes sure they know about this blue light special shoppers. But when the home for sale marketing is missing, the phone does not ring, the email server does not glow red hot from activity.
Buying the horse farm property in Maine.
The land soil profile, the location and slope is everything for raising, showing, developing a horse farm property for a business investment. Or for just the sheer pleasure of an equestrian hobby operation. Horsing around on your Maine land. And agriculture 101 comes into play in the real estate exercise buying the horse farm property in Maine.
Like people, Maine land soils are different.
What you use the farm land in Maine for requires different agricultural real estate approaches to maximize the soil's productivity. While being careful not to cause soil erosion and remaining always eagle eyed about drainage, the terrain of the land and proximity to Maine's precious waterfront resources. The fields, the woodlot are kept in a balance with the wildlife to protect their home too. And the goal is to pass along the land in Maine to your loved ones or another farm property buyer who protects the environment in the same respectful approach.
A large acreage parcel being eyed for use as a Maine horse farm would be a very foreign assignment.
To a real estate agent or broker working an urban market where it is just house house house sales.
And everyone has a tight tall obtrusive fence around their lots to desperately gain a spec of privacy. With the land measured in square feet like the home, not in whole or at least large fractional units of acres or hectares.
(One acre unit of land measurement is almost two and half times bigger when converted to hectares.) And one acre of land is roughly 208.71' by 208.71 when sliced and diced into a simple square shape. Where I live, just a few miles to the east is the Canadian province of New Brunswick where hectares not acres are how land is measured up for size on farm properties.
Who would do well living in Houlton Maine?
Hard to not go anywhere in a small Maine town without the question "how's the real estate market ?" asked.
It is not just being friendly or making conversation. Folks want to know how is the real estate market today? Not last year, but maybe can you predict where this one is heading is a follow up inquiry. 
Maine is one big vast state so the answer to the question how's the real estate market can be misleading.
How do the local real estate market listings and sales numbers line up?
Hard like most news to sum up in a short, convenience sound bite or video clip with an industry professional. Why so hard? Because the state is the sum of it's parts and one answer to use sizing it up does not work for each of the same sixteen counties in Maine.
So like weather forecasts, one size does not fit all when talking a state as big and diverse economically as Maine. So survey says ... (ding ding ding) more than one pat answer.
Here is the latest real estate press release for Maine property listings and sales as a whole and county by county. The study of the numbers prepared and just reported by the Maine Association Of REALTORS.
Whatever you border, should you buy the property next door?
The house, vacant lot, whatever type of real estate butts up to your border, should you purchase it before someone else does? Lots of ways to look at the situation when your neighboring real estate comes up for sale. Is available for purchase from you or someone else. The timing could be perfect or the worst for the opportunity to add to whatever you now own. It just may not be in the cards to consider buying what is next door to what you already own.
So if you can not purchase today, if the option to buy is presented, take the neighboring property owner up on the chance to make it your own down the road.
A first option to purchase is not the seller next door asks you if you want to buy or not and moves on with you now out of the picture if you pass up the chance to purchase. The first option means other buyers can wheel and deal and make offers all they want. But before the seller lets the property go to a new buyer, he or she will come back to you to give you one more chance to say yes or no. You could end up getting the property cheaper, with better terms than the figure first quoted.
Get that first option to buy real estate agreement in writing and expect anything verbally promised is gone with the wind when the neighboring property owner dies before selling. The heirs of the estate often care little about previous conversations and promises made between you and your neighbor. It's show me the money and settle the estate, pay the bills and split up any profit time for those left behind that you have no connection with personally.
If the property next door is priced so high that it is too rich for your blood, others may feel the same way too and pass up the option to buy. If the property is appraised by a bank lending money on the collateral, there is no way anyone is going to pay a King's ransom to make it their own. The appraiser keeps a lid on the fair market value. And makes sure value is there before the real estate closing ever happens when a bloated price property is being exchanged.
If you had a small lot, below the square footage of what is typical for the neighborhood, buying more land can increase the value of what you do own. If raw land is what is up for sale, if the purchase does not involve renting out a home or the added expense of tearing down a structure.
Save them time, the Maine real estate buyers and sellers.
Time is money and in short supply for over-booked property owners and purchasers. The by far best way to save anyone thinking of buying or selling is by use of video. The connection is instant. The delivery of information using the eyes and ears is hooked up like a vital IV. Video channels to be effective needed to be treated like a garden though. Tilled, smoothed, planted, fed, cultivated, harvest (repeat).
Society as a whole is not so crank on trusting strangers.
The best way to stop being a stranger is to start helping others.
To be a helper it starts with a quick story of who you are as a Maine real estate professional excited about living in Vacationland. To establish a relationship as the local expert, your neighborhood partner who plans to stay your real estate broker for life. Beyond one property listing transaction.
Once the buyer or seller of Maine real estate is convinced "okay, you can be my agent or broker" the treatment changes from who I am to here is what you need to know. The same questions come up from anyone new to the area. So a local information 101 session has to start quickly. Because this buyer and seller are very busy, it is often late at night and they want to start the process before lights out. For the short wait for Mr. Sandman once the head is in the bed. And hopefully good dreams, not real estate nightmares. Buying or selling real estate in Maine should be a positive experience. It can be fun if the red flags are seen. And the potholes ahead are avoided based on real estate experience.
This video for FAQ on Maine is always showing up on Internet searches.
Idling, waiting like a tax cab driver to hit the accelerator. To push the pedal to the metal to speed to deliver the information the buyer or seller needs right now. Not tomorrow morning on a 9-5 schedule or days from now as everything is put on hold waiting for information.
It helps if upfront the website portal for real estate in Maine is set up for easy navigation, nothing to make the user feel dumb. You don't have to have a black belt in website maneuvering to use our Maine real estate website. Our local Northern Maine agency also maintains more than one real estate website for properties. Why? Because everyone drives a different kind of car for a reason. The approach is a little different, how we stock the real estate listing and local information shelves is a tad varied.
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