Renting Out Your Maine Home

Renting out your Maine home.

This Maine real estate blog post is all about making money carefully renting out your Maine home. Let’s get to it.

Month to month renting a Maine home or entering into a year long lease.

The groans, gasps on your end are felt at this keyboard blog post. The word “renter” alone creates an uneasy feeling deep down inside many in the audience.

Obligation, not sure what you are signing up for and wondering is this such a good idea renting our your Maine home or not.

It’s one thing to study the potential rental income numbers alone. Looks great on paper. But there are other people, attitudes, expectations involved with renting out your Maine home.

A renter is usually a stranger, someone using your Maine home anyway they seem fit.

And if you don’t like the way they treat your home in Maine, it is not so easy to quickly end the renting tenancy.

To make them move against their will and to address the trash and treasure left behind for you to tackle. Seeing the new flooring less than a year old and how they left the bathroom area can create one big pit in your stomach. Wondering what have I done? You would never live like this or treat a place so poorly. There is the problem.

You would not live like this and naively assume everyone else is playing by the same rules at your Maine rental property.

How to make sure you have a good renter? Like hiring an employee, you do a background check. You get references. Make calls, ask lots of questions. You build in a security deposit, first and last months rent to be ahead of the game. What is included in the rental?

Put it in writing and make it as iron clad as possible.

Choosing a good tenant is all about asking questions.

Following the law, getting a tenant with good credit. The interview process will show you what to expect. Why is the tenant moving? Why do they need a place? Call the local utility providers and say you are thinking of renting to so and so. If there is dead silence on the line, and you ask are you there and the response is “I heard you.” Followed by more silence. Dead air is what we called in in broadcasting circles.

There is your read between the lines that speaks volumes as you attempt to size up a potential rent your home in Maine candidate.

Small Maine towns are very close and connected and word gets around about all the damage a person did to a place or how immaculate they left it. You know the parents, what to expect and develop a gut feeling on how well or poorly the Maine home will be treated.

It is legal to interview the past landlords and to get a credit check on any potential Maine home renter.

Renting to family is 99% of the time a mistake and you the landlord are not always taken serious. You wouldn’t take your nephew or mother in law to court would you? That family member has a pretty good idea what they can get away with because of your good nature and wanting to avoid a fight as a peace keeper. People treat you the way you enable them to treat you right?

You have to set it up as a business, treating everyone professionally but firmly to make the Maine home rental exercise profitable and as hassle free as possible.

Why does the tenant need a place? How many people are going to be living under the Maine home you are considering renting out needs to be learned. Is it just a couple with no pets and both work full time? That is a low impact rental situation you know will limit the wear and tear renting out your Maine home.  

But say you bought a Maine waterfront home that could be rented out when not personally enjoyed.

It’s a place for vacations when you can run away up to Maine.

The plan is to use it once in awhile but hopefully more at a later stage of life called retirement. Why not rent out the place up in Maine on the lake to help defer the expenses of mortgage payments, property taxes and insurance? To take the take the investment tax credits, chip away at the Maine home maintenance expenses.

There are lots of great renters.

You would be one right? But you don’t usually hear about the great tenants in your circle of friends or off the local grape vine. The renter from Hell who destroyed the place, stopped making lease payments. That took up to nine months to evict using court house steps and an attorney charging billable hours.

So renting out your Maine home.

How do you find someone that treats the home in Maine like their very own with pride and respect? You have to ask a lot of questions before you agree on the terms and conditions of renting out your Maine home.

Well, in the case of a Maine vacation home, the renter is often already a house owner.

They have experience taking care of a home they usually bought with a mortgage. Applying TLC and lots of blood, sweat and tears. A home owner knows about property maintenance on their own place and the respect for your place should carry over in the partnership.

What is the going rent in your area of the big state of Maine for short term or extended stay vacation rental properties?

Remember, it’s not all about trying to squeeze the most of out the rental rate wise but finding a tenant who cares for the place. You can make more money with an extended stay approach. Charge more for the person wanting to get more than what a local motel charges for a nightly rate. But not wanting to saddled with a year long lease because they don’t plan on sticking around that long. And how many dogs do they have? Really, that many in a small efficiency is not going to cut it.

I have found managing vacation week and full time Maine property rentals that each are approached differently.

For the short term vacation rentals in Maine, certain prime time weeks command higher prices. The three months of summer are in greater demand. Fall hunting trips, spring fishing adventures are not quite as big.

Over the winter months you may not want to deal with heating a place or frozen pipes at your Maine rental property.

But snowmobilers, ice fishermen, downhill and cross country skiers are all looking for a place bigger than a motel room next to a truck stop. Your Maine home rental could be just the experience setting they are searching for online.

Renting out your Maine home is a business, not hobby.

Set up a rental plan and explain to potential tenants that check out is Saturday at noon, check in at four PM. This gives time for the hired caretaker if you are far away to see if the security deposit is given back or not. To strip the beds, make them up with new linens. Unless you instruct your tenant to bring their own and what they will need.

A book outlying what to do for fun around your Maine rental home.

You are a tourist information center and rolling out the red carpet welcoming them to Maine. Letting them know you hope they have fun and here are some friendly suggestions on things to do around your Maine home rental property location. Here is a list of where to eat and heck, even a copy of the menu, all the to go phone numbers for take out in the area.

Fun in the sun and some steady income renting our your Maine home.

You have the gas grill on the deck, kayaks and a hammock to use at your vacation property rental. Or in the case of a month to month house rental, your tenant could be the new traveling nurse at the local Maine hospital or health care facility.

Maybe a new plant expansion or local construction project is planned and the contractors from out of town need a place to land after long hours of hard work.

They only sleep at your place and when not off working or sleeping with their head in the bed, they high tail for home wherever that is. These out of town workers need a place more affordable than the nightly local Maine motel rate. With the construction worker rental scenario, how many tenants, who is the lead reindeer responsible for the rent and any damage? With all rentals, you are looking for steady don’t have to chase the tenant for the rental income. And just as important, the least amount of wear and tear on your rental property up in Maine is always the goal.

If you wait and don’t rent to the first call or email request, you gain the time to properly vet the renter to know what to expect.

You can know what to expect from the red flags that pop up in the conversation. If three families want to jointly rent your Maine vacation home and there are only two or three bedrooms, whoa. Your poor septic system is going be “ridden hard and put away wet”.

With vacation rental of your Maine home, you will find the same people come back year after year for the same time slot week.

They come to think of your Maine home rental property as their own “home sweet home away from home”. I have sold Maine vacation homes that were rented out from day one. With eventually all the time share weeks filling up so there are none left to rent out because of repeat vacationers.

Putting the property to work, your home up in Maine.

Renting out your Maine home. Great idea if approached carefully and learning from the success and mistakes of others before you. Here to help if you are looking for a Maine home to rent out full time. Or the in between weeks of the year you don’t use the vacation property. If you are a renter looking for a place to stay, check this local Maine rental blog post.

In small town rural Maine, you don’t usually have to worry about HOA covenants or local zoning hassles renting our your property.

Maine is a way way simpler approach to living and common sense is still used freely here in Vacationland.

There may be a clause in your mortgage about rental use and the property insurance carrier is probably going to want to add to your coverage. And has something to say about that wood stove in the corner of the Maine camp. Here is more information on renting in Maine.

Renting our your home in Maine while it is for sale.

Should you do that? If the tenant is short term and does not interfere with the real estate sale, sure. The same rules apply about how to find a good renter. I have had one lady with two boys who literally was better than the owners of the property we rented her.

The place spic and span, no delays in showings to qualified Maine house buyers.

And her dad kept the lawns mowed like it was a resort. Her brother made sure the furnace and all the operating systems were in top notch condition looking out for his little sister.

Often the renter for your Maine property, say a home had to move from an apartment house.

Where police sirens, loud music and lots of fighting or drama in the next door apartment forced them out. You want a peaceful, mild mannered tenant and your well maintained property rental can be a perfect fit.

Listing, marketing, selling Maine real estate.

That’s the primary job as a small Northern Maine real estate broker in business since 1976. But rentals, short term, long term, and how to stay out of hot water. All part of the job we do in Aroostook County, Northern Penobscot and Washington Counties. Searching, looking for Maine real estate listings? Questions about Maine real estate, the local community and how things rock and roll? Here to help! Let’s connect, please reach out with questions. That’s why we blog post information and upload it on a regular basis.

Always use a local Maine real estate agent, broker, REALTOR to list or sell your property.

And if you decide to rent it out to help subsidize the mortgage payments to get it payed off, turn to a local experience Maine real estate professional to help maneuver the tenants. I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 |  info@mooersrealty.com  |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA