Simplified Living In Maine Towns Under 4000 Population.

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Maine is rural and a collection of mostly small towns, just little communities.

That is a big part of the attraction when anyone is considering relocation to Maine. Smaller town living is better. It removes a lot of what you don’t want in your day to day. It keeps it nimble David not big and slow to move Goliath.

The moving to Maine real estate buyer wants to be a part of a vibrant community and to find ways to contribute, to give back their energy and talents. The small Maine town is what it is because of all the people that inhabit it. Not just the empty buildings or fresh air and clean water natural setting alone. You need the mix of dynamic people of all walks of life, across the board age wise. mainecanoers2

So what size Maine small town to select? Because chances are it is going to be a small town and there are only a handful of cities in the pick a place location exercise.

Heading to Maine. Getting the space, the less red tape, the lower amount of layers of players and lots of low cost real estate listings is where a small town with under 4000 population really shines. There is less hired done and more home grown hands on that happens which makes the events, the lifestyle down to Earth.

Simple living means less hassles shuffling the paperwork forms and obtaining permits. Run away from the delays, the high cost of living foumd in an urban center. Trade it in for Maine where we paddle together down the streams, across a lake and work together running the small towns we are so proud up and personally invested. We do way way more that just pay property taxes and are not hands off in the local administration of everything that happens in the boundaries of the small Maine town.

It is more real, genuine and pleasant in smaller Maine towns.

Not spun like a typical tourist trap location along the coastal regions in Maine so artfully does to exploit and survive. All that is missing when a small Maine town has local control and is not so big for its britches that everything is cumbersome, slow and expensive. Further the better heading away from a city is what I hear people ordering up when they move or relocate to Maine.

The hoity toity is missing but that does not mean welcome to the red neck living channel. There is a healthy inbetween that is not snarky and just makes the folks feel good inside about where they live. Because they help shape the direction the small Maine town is headed.You are needed in a small Maine town and have to step up and sign on for duties you will do the rest of your life. That’s how it works so pace yourself.

When a small Maine town with 4000 or less populaton gets a subdivision for house lots approved, the process is quick and easy too.

You the land developer need a boundary survey, the soil tests for septic designs for each proposed lot to show it is indeed buildable. And yes, the Maine Department Of Transportation (MDOT) weighs in on whether where you are thinking of putting a driveway is a good idea of not. To save you from being T-boned in an auto accident at your own property entrance on or off whatever roadway is servicing where you build the home sweet home in Maine. No one wants to spend time in the ER.

The overall process is easier developing and building in Maine.

Because the approval boards are town level smaller and often you find whoever serves on them also has a couple more committees they occupy a seat on. They wear several hats. There are not lines of people chomping at the bit to serve so experienced locals happen in the decision making. All cross trained but not much turn over. No salary but just sincere interest in making the town a better place to live, work and play is the reward. They stick around and don’t move in and out to advance their professional career because their real income is made from another job, not muncipal administration.

So everything is not lost in grid lock.

You see less hired professionals running departments and more volunteers with other jobs in Maine small towns on the zoning, planning and other boards. Someone in the small town is the animal control officer. Another makes sure the graveyards are kept mowed and sacred.

Everyone takes a turn as the board of assessment review, working on the planning or zoning boards. So the greater involvement means better informed from first hand experience. Ask someone in a city about the public works department, issues at the local police and fire or ambulance and those are dark murky subjects because the average Joe and Jane in the population does not have first hand information.

Not in small towns because they those issues are discussed “uptah camp” or in the aisles of the Piggy Wiggly corner store, sitting on the bleachers at a local school sporting event half time or during coffee time after church when the worship turns froms fire and brimstone to a little more social. 

So talking something to death in late night meetings is less likely and more compromise, greater helpings of common sense are applied to the development in small Maine town. It is your money that is being spent and you are invested in the burg you plan to stick around it, raise your family, retire and maybe high tail it to someplace tropical for a change of scenery and a little more red in the glass tube. mooers farm maine properties

The local populations pushing the levers of decision making directly removes a lot of the obstacles that a paid bureaucrat group can create in the stall. We talk among outselves and compare notes to formulate the best solution to issues at hand. We don’t hire it out, we are not proned to letting someone else figure it out from far away offering expensive consulting services. That only leads to stacks of studies book bound and collecting dust on shelves under the coffee maker or in the back room where the town office Christmas decoations, the voting polling place paraphernalia is hidden.

The fire in your belly and quicker decision making is lost when the project dies in committee and just too much time spent on the operating table that makes it bleed out. Other projects can come up as life and death important that push whatever was being discussed to go deeper into the shadows. 

When the subdivision is approved, a smart small Maine town will not start charging a per lot higher tax right out of the gate but stays progressive.

Knowing the land could be farmed and the future housing may come slowly. But at least the lots are created now knowing the process will only get harder and more expensive. So easy does it and keep the costs down. Start the house lot pricing once a first lot is transfered to a home owner building a new house. Not before until that single lot sales hay day happens.

The small Maine town with progressive thinking encourages the lot creation knowing not everyone needs forty acres of land to homestead. They realize some retired Maine land buyers plan to spend half time here in Vacationland, the other remainder of the year at a winter home.If there are not small buildable lots, then the relocating move to Maine land buyer does it in another small town or not at all. Wasted opportunity happens when that occurs.

A larger town hungry for money to run a more complex intrastructure is expensive.

mainehomechristmas1Being just outside that hub could be a better place to enjoy lower property taxes, and not duplication of services.

Small towns without the financial overhead can weather economic set backs easier. The cost to run them is lower because all the machinery a larger town sets up is expensive when income stops flowing in to fuel it. We quickly see red flags ahead and react today when spending has to be diverted or curtailed just like in your own personal household budget. The spending is tightened when like in the movie Sully you hear “pull up, pull up, obstacle ahead” in your head, deep down inside your gut. It’s live and local, personal and you are more involved and deeply committed. You and I are “they” in a small town conversation, when someone brings up a grip and the question is asked why don’t “they” do something about this or that. When something in the past is pointed out as the wrong direction taken for the community’s growth or enhancement or was something near and dear lost, the blame on “they” is felt like there is no “I” in team. But life goes on and don’t let it hold you back.

There are perks to being a bedroom community and just over the line. Not trying to set up everything the larger town or a city in Maine are struggling with as the state retools. To replace the jobs lost in the lumbering, farming, fishing industries and to beef up the efforts to lure telecommuters that work remotely.

To turn up the volume on our tourism channel that is heaviest along the coast and less publicized the more inland, the further north you trek in Maine.

Getting a building permit, written fire burning okay, a local registration for your vehicle or snow sled, boat, ATV four wheeler is quick and easy in a small Maine town. Heck I have even seen a town manager call to remind a tax payer their registration is due, this is what you owe and come on down. Or to head in on a Saturday morning, or they drop off the paperwork at their home because it’s right on the way.

Every is a friend and neighbor in small Maine towns.

There is a tighter connection and everyone works together. Has to because the town is too small to hire everything done and not too small to continue to keep the doors open as state and federal laws add more of an expensive burden to the local administration of the small Maine town. We don’t need more laws. We need common sense that there is plenty of on the local level in a small Maine town.

Small town living is better for banking, shopping, anything that does not require massive volume of consumers to monetize. It needs protection like other services offered on the local level. I see it in my job with gypsy mortgage lending banks, title companies, insurance providers who try to poach the small local Maine economy. It is best to cater and utilize the local providers of any service or product sale. And if you don’t support them they will dry up and disappear. 

I have asked an out of state buyer how did you pick Acme Mortgage or Quick Like A Bunny Title Services and often it was a live person was available at 10PM to talk with and they offered free services like credit counseling, etc. The local providers of services do it above and beyond but may not be as sophisicated as the large national providers with the ads in the Super Bowl or World Series expensive ad rotations. 

Sure there are the Amazons of the World that take away local dollars that could instead turn over six to seven times in the local economy of a small Maine town. mainefarmscene1

But the same Internet that can give locals an option outside to shop, it also can be harnessed to attract folks looking for smaller simpler Maine living that a community in The Pine Tree State offers so well for the delivery of quality of life!

Start by vacationing in Maine, then the tug on the heart strings happens for the rest of your life. You won’t be able to stay away for long or at all.

Drop dead gorgeous. Maine sure is without the make up enhancements or any of the shuck and jive hype. A place to unplug and rewind, get your life re-synched. Looking to find a small town living to change it up and get more from your day to day? Lower cost real estate, less traffic, no gangs with turf wars, no drive by shootings is a better way to live. Maine offers that and here to help if you want a piece of Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573  |  info@mooersrealty.com  | 

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

 

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