House hunting in Maine. Looking for a home starts first with finding a Maine community.
The location of where you decide to live in Maine is everything. You know the three “L” real estate chant about what’s the most important thing to remember. Picking the best location for this point in your life requires home work.
Because Maine is one tall and wide expansive state to navigate even with GPS or a compass to avoid getting lost house hunting.
So to avoid running in circles and losing your bearings, one by one take the steps to select the right Maine community first.
This must happen before the eenie meenie miney moe in house hunting from the current inventory selection for the entire state of Maine. Before getting too hot and heavy serious about a home, make sure you have fallen in love with the area first.
The purpose of this real estate blog post is to help outline the best steps house hunting in Maine to avoid getting lost.
I hope it is especially helpful for someone brand new to Maine. That visitor who never or just a couple of times actually stepped foot in Vacationland for a short fun visit. No significant time spent in Maine when you decide to move and relocate here. Kinda makes house hunting like shooting in the dark. Even native Mainers living full time in the Pine Tree state would be a little fuzzy if quizzed on specific areas in the sixteen counties. Maine is a hike to explore and you come for a day, end up staying a lifetime. Find an area of Maine to concentrate on first. Then one by one do the cake walk parade of what is for sale today in your price range and with the feature options you desire.
So on with the blog post show, house hunting in Maine, picking the location.
The areas you study, the one that works best considers many factors. The cost of the house you track and hunt for varies greatly in Maine real estate markets. The long and short of it? Expect to dig deeper, pay more for housing in and around Maine’s handful of cities.The cost of housing gets cheaper the further you go up into Maine away from the green bridge on the southern end.
Like anything you purchase, you consider the pros and cons before removing your hand from the chess piece and committing to the major move. How far the location is from quality community health care, shopping, work if not retired, schools is looked at. So is the lifestyle hobbies you enjoy and that the area of Maine encourages easily and inexpensively.
The other financial consideration house unting is travel costs, time, wear and tear on vehicles during all kinds of weather.The motel lodging, tolls, eats on the road again and again.
Willy Nelson loved it, you might find it gets old and that there must be a better way.
So you get to whatever one community in Maine has the best to offer that the one you pick for a house does not.
Someone with failing eyesight and regular doctor visits would stick closer to the services. Not want the ffifty to seventy five mile each way travel time house location to worry about and cause them sleepless nights.
So the amount of money to spend in your house hunting and the desire to have no or a very small mortgage to wrestle with whittles it all down in the Maine community selection options.
Maine’s cities have mass transit because of more people to make the wheels on the bus go round and round. Before making the long trips back and forth every time a new home listing comes on the market, tap into the video channel for houses for sale. You get to tour them anytime on your schedule over and over. Saving gas and more than once or twice taking the open house on demand look it over test drive.
Videos provide the cyber walk through option one after another. The community video playlist for what the area flavor tastes, looks like saves the home buyer considerable time they may not have to waste. No one likes scratching, digging, waiting for house information that puts the hunt for a home on hold.
House hunting in Maine, you have a budget to work within unless money is no object.
So selecting where in Maine to buy a home is tied to the purse strings. They guide where you end up in Maine after a successful house hunting expedition. Much is accomplished in the search for Maine housing. If the move is for a job and you have a growing family, how about getting me up to speed about the local Maine community schools has to happen.
Local detailed community information moving to Maine is critical to have in the discussion going back and forth. Y
ou asking questions, me supplying answers.
Plus adding helpful blog posts to drill even further down into explanations and rich deeper answers to remove any gray area doubt.
The Maine expression applies… it is hard tellin’ not knowin’ and my job is to get salt and peppered with all your questions.
The concerns you have are often in our FAQ website section too.
The where to go looking for a home? When you own a four thousand square foot home out of state and the move to Maine is to declutter, spend less and rein it in for something smaller. The run and gun hunt is to try on a ranch, cape, tiny house or something more cottage like and for the vacation second home fit. Smaller square footage decisions mean the less you have better provide more… the right stuff. Some home designs just deliver better quality of living than others.
Housing hunting can takes months, years and sometimes it remains a dream where you don’t wake up in Maine.
Circumstances like elderly parents out of state, career moves away from Maine can impact the getting on the road to head up Interstate 95 to Maine.
Kids that have grandchildren are a powerful magnet to keep you close to the new family members.
Or your own kids have issues with you hunting for a home and moving to Maine.
It’s because they are pretty dependent on you. Or don’t want to worry you are not answering the phone up in Maine. They deduce everytime the worse. That you probably hit your head and on the corner of the coffee table and are right now bleeding to death.
Where when you live next door in the granny flat or two blocks away they can skip over to see why you did not answer the call or text. When your favorite golden oldie song is cranked loud and the phone call or its vibration were not heard or felt. Not living in Maine to make your out of state kids happy is not the top reason to quit house hunting here.
Also, the real estate search, how long is the house hunting season in Maine?
It never ends, there is no truth to the myth homes don’t sell in winter. A little snow on the ground does not call a halt to our Maine house hunting seasons because a person’s life is never put on hold. Life goes on with buying, selling year round on Maine houses that need to be bought and sold without expensive delays.
Being six, eight or more hours away does impact how much you see your grown children and their kids living out of state.
But if the grand babies spend their summers, school holidays in Maine, wouldn’t that benefit them and you who end up making the move here?
All making it about timing in life and when to pull the trigger on the house hunting tramping around the Internet for local information.
Tapping into a great agent or broker who is involved in the communities from work, play, volunteering and living in the Maine zip codes under consideration.
Online local community information for small Maine towns is lacking.
Or purely historical with skimpy wikipedia entries hit or miss spotty.
You are reading this real estate blog seriously searchingf. After information and for more on simple living lifestyle pieces double tap the Me in Maine link.
The best bait to use when house hunting?
The home pre-approval better than pre-qualified letter from your local mortgage bank lender. It’s like what jelly filled donut do to entice a Maine black bear. Getting pre-approved for a home loan is the right ammo to obtain before tramping in and out of what’s for sale. Seller’s take your offers serious when the all approved for a home loan letter is attached to the purchase and sale offer paperwork.
You don’t have misfires when you find the one you want to take a shot at but oh oh, bank manager says wait just a minute. Let me get back to you about some credit issues you did not know you had on the soft pull credit report on his desk for denial or approval.
COVID19 pushed the need for a home buying bank letter even harder.
It was always smart to care one and whip it out before making any offers on Maine homes. But now it’s mandatory and just smart to save wear and tear running the roads house hunting. Get ready to buy a home, don’t just plow into the process willy nilly.
The pre-approval buying a home getting out of the way early on lets you know what the bank says you can borrow. And at the same time, you can set your own limits or price range to take pot shots at when anything looking good on the MLS shooting range comes along to consider.
Also, in house hunting, make sure to not pigeon hole the search process with only a couple towns and that’s it.
Making it only buying this perfect home in this zip code. When it could be for sale and waiting to consider but one or two Maine communities in one of the four directions. Also, searching for homes on a real estate website you can dial in too much or too little.
Ending up missing the home base target completely with too tight house searches.
Filtering helps save time and slicing, dicing is a wonderful search tool on Amazon or Ebay. But Maine is small towns, less populated communities and you won’t be spending days in the search for what you want.
The inventory of what is for sale for houses any given day is just not that huge since COVID19 hit the real estate market in Maine.
The days on market are longer, the new inventory does not chang over quickly. Maine listing, the simple living here just does not move at the speed of sound. Less property, cheaper real estate listings and they get slowly added to in the MLS inventory.
Don’t put in so many feature restrictions that only one, two or none spill out of the real estate house hunting vending machine.
But in the same token, put in bedrooms, price limit and back off, see what boils down to spill off to study. Rely on a local real estate professional and give them the wish list and see what they come up for matchmaking.
It saves time because that local lives here, knows the home town advantage to all the many things to consider.
He or she is a much better advisor than your never been here before friends out of state that mean well.
But plant ing ideas in your head about what to look out for and to make sure you do this, this, and oh my goodness not that.
When they know even less about Maine communities, the local real estate market and how it behaves than you do! Because you have been collecting information on Maine.
Housing hunting in Maine, you are not in your out of state home market where you have lots more experience.
Never feel pressure to buy today, to feel if you don’t that is something you will regret for life. You did not let one get away, another trophy home is out there and easy does pulling the trigger. It takes missing one or two knowing others will be along.
Number one rule in hunting for anything for the best return. Patience.
Like climbing up into a tree stand for the better part of a day. Waiting, watching, not moving a muscle. Well, except for the mouse finger to round up the house listings that look good from the outside. Rolling, lathering up with the house hunting get-in-the-game scent to attract the right stuff beating the bushes.
The approval house buying bank lender mortgage letter is the red flag needed to stand out to avoid getting shot down.
So you get noticed by the home owner. Followed up in close second is tapping into the local real estate professional who can partner up for smooth sailing.To keep you from shooting yourself in the foot.
Guiding you through the obstacle course along the rabbit trails that are easy to get sidetracked on if not careful. When you don’t do this house hunting every day, it is easy to waste daylight. To be up too late burning the midnight oil trying to piece it all together.
To make everything fall into place with less hassle, no time wasted. and help you save money, you need a licensed Maine real estate guide.
Again, take as long as it takes is what to plan for waiting for the right house to come down the trail. It will show up on the cross hairs of your seach scope with patience. New listings before they even hit the open market, price reductions on the ones you liked but were nose bleed too high.
Those too high get adjusted and go the other way. You want to be the first one to know about the pendullum swing the other way right? The Maine real estate professional works day and night to provide you that valuable housing information. He or she is in the foxhole watching carefully while you lead your life.
Never shop when you are hungry or in a major hurry because regret later will knock on your door.
This buying a house is one if not the biggest purchases you ever make. Taking those kind of shots in the dark at anything that moves or makes a sound wastes time. That causes reloading to recover from the shot too early. In the resale and here we go again house hunting because first one missed royally and was just not done the right way.
There is usually more than one in the house hunting party.
Husbands and wives, partners, mom, dad, the kids and more don’t always agree on the carbon copy same list of where to buy or which one. Time to be a Dr Phil to bring everyone together in their concerns. Don’t force it and arriving at a group decision with cool heads and education to help arrive at the best decision making. Maine does not have polar bears, we don’t live in igloos just in case you heard that myth from someone who has never been here.
Plenty of people out there who mean well have strong opinions. Those trusted advisors and life long friends need to be brought into the conversation. Let’s cc them into the emails. Iit’s easy if you want them included in information gathering here that is way different than there out of state where you live now. Tips moving, relocating to Maine you may find helpful.
Buying, selling, trading a property,ior just casually house hunting until something trips your trigger.
Here to help whenever you are ready as long as it takes. Ask lots of questions and not just about real estate house listings. In conclusion, hope this house hunting in Maine real estate blog bost is helpful. Rather than trying to do the best job picking an area of Maine and a home for sale in it, turn to a Maine REALTOR.
The local real estate profession with years of experience and involvement in the Maine community is your best tool house hunting in Maine.