The appraisal process when buying a home that needs bank mortgage lending house valuation.
The lender that knows the combination to the big stainless hardened steel safe tumblers wants to know what you are eyeballing for a home sweet home measures up in the condition standards department. For the A-Z mortgage underwriting conditions and the quick sale of the paper on the secondary market to investors.
High tension power wires that glow blue and hum when it is pitch black at night over head are not a real estate property feature that buyers ask for in their home search.
Looking to buy a home? What do you need to bring to the bank, what paperwork do you round up to prepare for the bank mortgage home loan approval letter?
Well, take the hike. To speed up the bank home loan pre-approval process done before you set your sights on the house of your dreams, here is what is needed by the mortgage lender. Anything that verifies your income, spells out the short and long term debts, and a list of your assets to determine your net worth.
The lender with the money you need to buy the home can send or hand you the application form and you hit and run on your way.
But it is nice when you bring all you need to complete it to the bank. When you the buyer seeking pre-approval home loan status ready have what the numbers are on hand. The ones used to fill in the question spaces to get pre-approved for a home loan.
Local banks are great because they have a presence in the community and you are doing business with someone with a stake in the home town area economy where you live, work and play.
The service inside the bank and from all the venders provided is quicker on the turn arounds too. Because the mortgage approval center that creates the paperwork is in town, your state not in some other solar system where decisions are slow in the shuffle of documents needed for a home loan approval.
Sellers take home buyers who make offers way way more serious when that purchaser is carrying a pre-approval mortgage loan credentials in hand.
When the home buyer already knows the program the loan will be underwritten in and no credit history issues are holding him back from moving forward to buy the seller's home if the negotiations go well.
You bought a home that needs a house addition, but before you bring out the staging and nail gun, hold it a minute.
The addition to the house in Maine better have lots of thought put into the construction plans. Because the original home may not be designed for the addition you had in mind. The cost of the construction you dream about needs a solid quote before you go after the local building permits too.
As a Maine real estate broker, I have been in quite a few houses over the last 38 years.
And improving a home starts with careful thought if you ever hope to recover the costs of the expenditures in a small rural state. Where what works in an urban market that is more forgiving and with more zero places in the property prices does not play so well in the lower cost small rural real estate arena.
So first things first when the time comes to consider adding on the existing house in Maine to create something different.
The building addition on the house you own in Maine. Which direction for the expansion... and is developing unused space that is already here the smartest way to go?
Fill in and rearrange what you already have could be wise for the limited funds hiding in your wallet or purse. Or thinking of financing the construction when pretty close to being free and clear of a house mortgage could mean let's study this need for more, better use of space DIY project.
Maine is famous for bartering, folks pitching in to exchange skills and sheer labor to avoid the high cost of living facing a home owner planning construction projects.
Lots of homes out there on the five year construction plan that have table saws in the living room. Two by fours, plywood tables where the eventual kitchen cabinets will slide in. Unfinished but paid for and as you go for the extra materials. Slowly and carefully added into the housing creation to be a work in progress.
To the average Joe and Jane, their view of the real estate industry and local market conditions are often tied to very limited personal experience.
What the public absorbs from the Grape Vine news stream down at the Piggly Wiggly pushing the wire cart. From the buzz and the hum picked up at the hair dresser salon or barber shop, from friends, family, the neighbor's real estate listing and selling event going on around them. Or whatever is splashed and beamed into their big flat screen TV display from real estate reality shows produced on the west coast.
The national media tries to "one size fits all" reduce and dumb down coverage of complex issues.
Making them into comic book simple statements in the headline news round up of that's the way it is today people. So when real estate market stories make it into the news stream rotation highlights, the sound bite or headline often has nothing to do with the local real estate market. Information is powerful but not if it is focused on the wrong GPS coordinates or too large an expanse on the blue and green revolving marble.
Real estate markets move and groove like the weather patterns change overhead too.
They heat up, cool off and have many layers. The more expensive the price tags hanging off the property listings, the greater the stratification and numbers of the real estate segments. Niche audiences for this size square footage, that new housing development or this lifestyle interest in real estate intensify as the wallet opens wider to subsidize the property needs in the what's for sale transfer to the new owners.
So how does a buyer and seller get the most accurate real estate information possible?
That applies for today, at this moment in time to snap shot the current real estate market conditions? From a local small town real estate professional who has weathered a few market storms. That can see where we've been in the real estate rear view experience mirror. That can look a property over and pin point where it falls in the rise and fall of the real estate market supply and demand for a particular real estate listing up for sale today. And that can see the tilt of the real estate listings and sales direction the local property market is headed.
People are busy and generic blog posts on real estate waste a lot of time.
There are millions of them in the way online taking up space. Many not even written by the agent and ghost writers that replicated them do all the hunt and pecking in the copy and paste.
When a blog post reader thinks they are getting needed help and information in the real estate process, things are good.
Right up until the point when they are wasting lots of time and spinning their wheels. Not getting what they hoped for and the blog post title promised. They thought.
The real estate blog posts that don't have much in them and can seem machined.
Cranked up and spun out to go through the motions. The best Maine real estate blog posts are helpful. They save time, are fresh and current. Money is saved because the blog posts work to fill a need.
Questions about the real estate process and tips for the listing seller. For say tips on getting a mortgage as a real estate buyer. Folks that get what they are after return to the local real estate souce. Save me time and I am your friend because you provided me something I can use, that I needed.
You did not make me go hunt all over creation and you showed up online on that front page search engine listing because others were thinking pretty much the same thing. Everyone likes a little red hen in the real estate service providing, for anything you need more than you already have for knowledge or experience.
That's what the goal of this blog post channel is, to combine with the property listing information. To provide a whole lot more to keep you from running here for this, there for that. To have it all at your finger tips, to easily access because the website navigation and design are not difficult or confusing.
To continue the process from listing to the real estate sale closing and everything inbetween.
And especially to approach it all from the local level. Not the one if I was listing and selling property in Miami Florida or Spokane Washington or the island of Maui in the Hawaiian chain of tropical spots.
The top ten list of anything can make those on it cheer and shout.
The other runner up locations that did not make the short list ask what do they know about Maine? About the secret of every small nook and cranny in Maine. Because Maine is a low population, a high eye candy state that logs in 4th lowest for crime, 46th lowest for FSSR (foreclosure, short sale, repossession) type real estate sales.
How you know you are lucky to live in a small Maine town?
What makes a small Maine town great?
It is more than the attraction of no traffic, little crime, lower cost of living.
Or the fresh air, clean water. What makes a small Maine town great is never forgotten. And each trip to a population center reminds a country mouse of all the reasons why they made their rural home where they did.
Less people paves the way for a better way of life. Less or no zoning, fewer regulations needed in the herding the population when it is small in number. Common sense runs the day in small Maine towns not flush with cash but rich in surroundings and creativity.
The property listing order comes into the email server or voice mail with a buyer on the hunt for 4 or more bedroom homes for sale in Maine.
Family sizes smaller these days and less of a need for the larger station wagon size housing rides? 
The size of the housing container need is just as big or even larger in many cases.
If you consider more in-laws are coming to your home to roost and you return the favor of providing the nesting for their Golden Years.
Or divorces on the rise mean your daughter and two of the sweetest grandchildren are going to be at the family table full time.
You add two extra table leafs to handle the additional plates and chairs. Because of economics for one of your children who needs help getting back on their feet, with the raising her kids. Just like when you add more children, blend families and pets from a new marriage. And your three, my four and any extras that show up in the mine, yours, ours in the kid head count. The kidlets have to sleep somewhere.
Larger homes that some would shun for size and maintenance expenses, heating costs are highly attractive to others who would be too cramped in anything small like a two bedroom ranch.
There is another reason the call comes in for 4 or more bedroom homes for sale in Maine too. The job is at home, online and needs an office studio to pull off that part of life's gig. So when we list a home in Maine for sale, I always think of the possible uses. For the many buyers with different needs out in the real estate audience.
That extra property listing space is pointed out for the possible extended family use, the hobbies of the buyer's lifestyle today, but also that it might work just fine for the home business. That can be a telecommute traveling to work on the copper or glass or through thin air. Or for the portion of the home where a goods or service is peddled. Mixing business with pleasure in the newly listed home for sale in Maine.
No individual (resident or otherwise) is permitted to fish in Maine without a fishing license. No matter what solar system or planet the angler calls his real home. The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife offers the permits to fish freshwater fishing and saltwater fishing license. Here is a list of complementary Maine fishing licenses for folks with head injuries, over seventy years of age, Native American and others in the citizenry.
Inherited homes in Maine, what to do with the real estate now that Mom and Dad, or whichever family member is gone?
Here is needed information on estate taxes in Maine as you delve into the homework stage of how to handle best the inheritance puzzle.
Also, what about that 2.5 % withholding tax on capital gains in Maine real estate sales?
Real estate lifestyle property listing searches in Maine are hot blog posting topics.
So we roll up the sleeves on both arms. To one by one hunt and peck blog posts that are fashioned to save time, money, to educate. And then attach to these fresh blog posts the right photos that tie in with the subject matter. Salt and pepper season them with the helpful links that go along with the hobby interests or uses for the property listing for sale in Maine. Matchmaking the real estate with right current property buyer out in the online audience.
A lot of the interest in our low cost real estate listings is from folks not needing a job.
Some already retired in the relocation to Maine. But more and more are in the category of telecomuters.
That are telecommuting to the online job outside Maine that does not get left behind in the packing up and heading north out of whatever state or country they last had on the upper left hand corner return address on their correspondence.
The employment in Houlton Maine becomes the job that comes packed up and right along with the personal treasures, all the furniture, the trinkets and nick nacks. That the property buyer throws in the trunk, tosses and ties down up on the roof with bungie cords. Or stashes in back of them to pull in the attached travel trailer. Hauled along like a shadow close behind as they pass over the big green bridge to the south heading north entering Vacationland. Ready for the next life adventure.
Some of the slices of real estate buyers are from the retirement pie portion of property buyers. The folks making the decision to invest in a piece of property here in Maine to use full or part time. The latter are snow birds. Often carrying golf clubs and chasing the white dimpled ball around courses like they are still working winters away from Maine in the sunny south where no snow shovel needed.
But back to the real estate lifestyle property listing searches in Maine.
The houses with large areas for a media room, for setting up a home recording studio for music making. Or to finally be able to have enough room for setting up a wood working shop. Or with a garage attached or detached big enough to take care of the family pair of vehicles for storage but also go above and beyond. To house the restoration of whatever needs it in an area for the old antique cars, boats, farm tractors or whatever collection trips the trigger of the real estate buyer.
The employment picture, do you need a job, work in Houlton Maine to pay the bills?
To keep the wolf from your door. Food on the table, to meet your financial obligations that depend on a job. Earning your keep is less of a hastle when you get independence from debt though. Living without monthly bills is one of the major reasons that draws folks to Northern Maine's Aroostook County is a common response to what attracted you to this part of Vacationland?
Renewal resources like burning wood from your own land if a homesteader replaces being energy dependent. Knowing what you eat, feed your family is pretty near and dear to Mainer's who have a patch of dirt and farmstead a simpler life on or off grid.
So back to jobs, employment, work in Houlton Maine.
Do they grow on trees and make your head spin trying to decide which one is best. No. Like the lower priced real estate listings, the salaries and number of job options to further your career are limited. Less people, fewer jobs and highly skilled employment choices in Houlton Maine are scarce.
Some folks bring their job with them and work online in Northern Maine. Others what to change what they have been doing and don't want the stress of chasing the dollar to make ends meet that high cost city living demands.
The rent rut, not liking it but how to climb out of it?
It can become a deep groove with steep sides. Is the curse of those that want to climb up and out into the ranks of successful first time home buyers for a Maine house.
Paying too much for rent, the extras you shell out in a less than perfect property unit means it is hard to put together the nest egg.
Which is the fuel to begin the process of the shift from renting to owning. For the key to the first time home buyer's home sweet home. A starter home on the real estate dart board because like a car, everything in life, you work your way up in small rural Maine.
I am living proof of how great the Maine State Housing First Time Home Buyer's Program really is for securing a home loan mortgage.
But I hear it daily. The renter who says they can more than afford the monthly house payments on this, that property listing. But a bank says differently because their debt ratios are too high.
The renter figures "I am paying more than the house payment now and am not under water, can pay my bills every thirty days. So I should be in the front of the line to buy that first house".
But the home loan mortgage underwriter guidelines says no dice, denies the home lending request until a lot of little things change.
Too much going out, none put away to pay those closing costs or even consider having a sizable down payment to wheel and deal with to get a mortgage approval for a Maine home loan.
The other problem is how easy it is to sign up for a new credit card and get a big discount off your first purchase using the plastic.
And for a car loan, easy peasy. Just sign here and drive off the lot. With a home loan, it is a little more involved, the stakes are higher and they can not tow truck your home like a car that suddenly is not being paid for and has to be dragged back to the car lot.
When a seller knows a real estate sale is needed. When a buyer gets the idea that he or she, they need a property to purchase. Regardless of weather, which holiday is approaching or now happening on the kitchen wall calendar, get the place listed so buyers see them on real estate radar.
To give them consideration for factors like if the financing is obtained, if their house sells first, if the job transfer paperwork down state or across the country really gets stamped and approved.
A lot of contingencies in the perfect timing to buy and sell. Life does not stop for a little snow or because a man in red velvet, white fur with flying reindeer is on his way if you were moderately good this year. 
The property listing put online for all to see if it has a full motion video with audio to help the show and tell tag team of two senses.
Will get the buyer not quite ready but getting there to sneak a peek. And if they like what they see, it is off to the bank, or getting his place listed for sale is one at a time is the only way he can financially handle mortgages.
Spread the word way way beyond the local turf too.
Because the results of real estate marketing take time to bloom. And no advertising, no promotion is like flirting with a girl across the gym in the dark. Poor results because she has no idea what you are thinking. Does not pick up on the signal. And make it go both ways. Hopefully.
So this news flash just in about listing in winter, over the set of holidays.
Real estate sellers who want a sale should have their places online, advertized full throttle because less property owners do in the winter months. So less places to sit in the real estate musical chairs means more attention. Especially if the possession date is not a long delayed on.
The seller who says sure, I can move out so you can buy and move in has a distinct advantage selling their real estate listing.
Job transfers like coaches being replaced and rotated at the end of the playing season happen around the first of the year. If your place is listed, online, it gets gawked at, found online and in print and the buzz is about your place.
Unless, oh yeah, you are not online, did not list or yanked your listing off the market. For like a fire fly, on and off. Confusing buyers when it is and wondering why it is not again. 
Changing the price of the real estate up and done causes the same stratching the head in wonderment out in the real estate audience.
January is a big month for relocation shuffling. And in the case of just land sales, waterfront real estate vacation properties, those type of listings get more attention.
When buyers do ease back during the holidays. And reflect on life at the Thanksgiving table or Christmas cocktail party. And decide now if the time to serious begin looking into a real estate listing in Maine that improves their life. That are always low cost, a high return investment that provides lots of enjoyment.
Home buyers have more time away from work during the holidays to look at property too. And the property decked out with Christmas lights, holiday cheer sparkle, shine brightest. Of course as the holiday passes, the real estate again needs rotating in new images if the place is still waiting for a buyer as spring approaches.
But back to listing during the holidays, the winter time end of the year means you have the jump on the rest of the sellers. Who believe just hold your houses, better wait until summer.
Because everyone knows real estate only sells in summer, a little in the spring and fall and never ever in Winter right?
We have the property sales from 37 years of listing and selling Maine real estate to prove otherwise.
The legal and banking professions ease up during the holiday work load so property sales go down the real estate conveyor belt fast, easier. Less pushing and shoving, competing with other property listing sales in the pipeline. All kinds of reasons to not pull the plug and stop the marketing of already listed properties too.
When that property goes dark online, the buyer who has been watching it like a hawk like others trying to get ready to buy in the background with personal loose ends.
They think geesh, darn, must have sold. Or is no longer for sale. The dream gets shaken and they wake up to look at what else is online. Other properties, not yours any more. What's that expression about strike while the iron is hot? Well not if someone tripped over the plug in cord or intentional stopped the flow of juice and things go stone cold.
And if you are a seller that entertains, is stressed and over extended during the holidays.
And can not think about staging the place, handling showings.
The news is that videos are open house on demand. Are the best your property will ever look because you did not start the blinking red light on the video camera recorder until everything was just so.
You have control of the property appearance in a real estate video. When no notice and just dropping in happens, not so much. Toilet seats are up, beds not made, and the cat box. Not so tidy that one day wouldn't you know it.
List your home, keep the property for sale marketing during winter months.
Make the possession date as flexible as you can and showings the least restrictive. But with real video, the place is being shown 24/7/365. So relax and happy holidays. Making plans for when the property listing does sell and you can move on with your life to the next landing spot.
Never hurts to look, browse listings right? To be ready.
Don't have to be a boy scout to know that. Sellers needing another home or piece of real estate look online all year round. That's why a place for sale should not be kept a secret or delayed in marketing to the largest audience possible and available on whatever device or location or weather of the real estate buyer.
I'm Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA
Schools in Maine, a state with vast space, more wildlife than people.
The wide open expanses make holding down expenses for providing a quality education a challenge in all parts of rural, lightly populated Maine. 
And when a family is raised, educated in one of our many small Maine rural towns, the schooling is not just the buzz out in the halls, on the sporting field. Or up on the musical or theatre stage, in the arena or played out until the buzzer sounds in the gym.
The educational stream is not just received sitting, absorbing at the classroom desks of higher learning for Maine school students either.
The Maine village helps raise the kids. Every person in the population can help shape the student of tomorrow. The support comes from out in the community, from the parents partnering at home. Mentors are your relatives, your parent's classmate, neighbors, town leaders, little league coach, Sunday school teacher. Small towns are filled with folks who work together, build the community as a group of volunteers.
Setting examples out in the local communities to guide and shape the young minds. To teach work ethic, postive attitudes, to create a skill set and build fierce pride in where they come from in Maine.
That is so important to a student's self esteem. To learn gratitude, to volunteer and consider we have to work together to achieve amazing results.
Getting an education, preparing the students with skills needed to survive, prosper and the encouragement to give back to the community where they live, work and play is what Maine healthy living is all about.
Share This Page
