A real estate appraiser looks a property over and determines the good, bad and the ugly.
Gives it a grade and explains for the customer that ordered the appraisal what we have for a property. How it fits into the local market of current real estate listings, closed sales.
But a buyer for Maine real estate, a property listing.
He or she, they whip out their own crimpled, wrinkled, special check list.
To size up and do the “what do we have here” once over.
To highlight the differences. To help create the distinction of each Maine property listing.
To see if it meets their needs, priorities. Fulfills their Maine real estate dream.
As they kick the tires, test drive. Sort through the subtle, and not always so small differences Maine real estate listings all possess.
It’s like an extra filter, template is fit over the property listing. To put the Maine real estate on their own personal dynometer. To run it at high RPM’s, see how it performs in the twists, dips, turns from the buyer’s unique perspective. What works best for a property listing that consider their individual needs, wallet or purse size.
It is not a given that everyone considers a property for purchase consideration by weighting it’s features or drawbacks with the same exact thought process. The take away conclusion can be entirely different.
Like how a song hits you, a movie rolls around in your head long after you sat through the scenes. Destroyed a bag of popcorn and slurped something cold and refreshing.
In Maine, the fact a property with large land acreage has power can swing both ways. To some, the drawback of not having a juice line running to the side of your home is frightening. To others, living off grid in Maine is a life long dream.
To others in that same camp of thinking. Crystal on the “no power preserves the neighborhood” sentiment or reasoning.
Peace and quiet, the serene, unspoiled will stay that way.
Keep lots of houses, people with barking dogs, kids with BB guns, dirt bikes and four wheelers from populating the area around them.
Drawbacks for some are protections, stop gaps and a good thing to others.
Like snow flakes, we are all different. Thank goodness or it would be a boring place, a sea of sameness. So predictable would happen everywhere you look.
When a property is more than just Maine land but has other elements like water front, a big view, marketable timber or fertile farm fields, the value increases.
Each buyer looking at a particular perk of the property as all important to them. But not getting the same property reading, real estate reaction take away that the next Jack or Jill would hold near and dear in their heart.
Owner financing on a property listing in Maine is not a feature all 
listings share.
But to some it means either find the seller carried terms to buy in installments or forget property purchasing altogether Sport.
Buying Maine real estate is emotional and all about timing in life too.
If you are a couple without kids thinking of homesteading in Maine, the concern of a shelter with winter approaching rapidly in late fall is not such a concern.
If you have an elderly, feeble grandparent, a dozen kids that need a roof over their head, an existing less than perfect structure suddenly gets bumped up the list of which to select.
When considering more than one Maine property listing that fits best for your family situation. And where we find ourselves on the calendar of seasons.
If there is a structure that is not going to be used in the relocation, move to Maine, the buyer has to consider am I buying a building that is only going to be torn down?
With not much to salvage and reuse in the Maine home in their head that has been carried around for a while.
The one already under mental construction. Just itching to be built but scrimped, saved for over the years. Until the timing was right to make the leap to new property bought in Maine. Put the trigger on the nail gun. Climbing up and down like a spider all over the Maine home staging scaffolding.
I have seen appraisal reports on a property listing under contract for sale have a write up, review less than encouraging.
Instead of giving mention, credit in the value for the new roof, modern heating system replacement or other expensive recent renovations. Those highlights left out completely in some cases. 
And here it comes. A laundry list of small, not so significant line items of what the appraiser amplifies into bigger than life.
And twice as frightening.
So after reading about the crack in a 40 cent single small pane of glass in the back end of garage, loose side step railing, missing bracket on a gutter down spout, etc.They sheer volume of the smallest defects sucker punch the property sale.
Well, the bank underwriting folks eyeballing, giving thumbs up or down on the condition of the property can get the wrong impression as he or she read down through the critical paragraphs.
Concluding the place has so much deferred maintenance items and in need of a major shot in the arm concerning repairs to meet underwriting bank loan standards.
Can seem overwhelming and the Maine real estate buyer who thought the place was peachy keen, priced right. Suddenly takes a step back and thinks maybe they had the totally wrong impression of the sticks and bricks. 
Bad day for the appraiser, or more weight put on the smaller incidentals than the major operating systems. That take a bigger chunk of change to update after the purchase?
We are a bundle of emotions, a little logic thrown in. Only human/ As Billy Joel reminds in one of his many songs, “we’re only human, are supposed to make mistakes”.
And it’s only humor me, all the Maine real estate buyers are different, human. Not always so sure in what they are after. So it is not as the agent, broker “I know exactly what you want”.
More of a case of let’s sit down, or talk over email, the airwaves and being a very good listener. Taking very good real estate notes to learn what the buyer wants, expects and then delivering on that shopping list with how about this one. No? What don’t you like and then okay.
Maybe this property listing in Maine is more to your liking, what you want and need.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730
