With any legislation or government regulations, there are paragraphs upon paragraphs of details to swim thru, get lost in, feel frustrated about.
Volumes of information but confusing and sometimes hard to zero in on just the major highlights. You want the headlines of the topic.
You want to know about the first time up to $8000 home buyer tax credit for real estate right?
Here are just a quick list of the highlights to see if you need to dig deeper.
For starters, income restrictions. Single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000. Married couples with up to $150,000 qualify for the full tax credit. (Partial tax credits may be available for incomes above this limit).
Amount of tax credit equals 10 percent of the home’s purchase price up to a maximum of $8,000.
No prepayment required unlike the previous tax credit. But you need to use the residence as a primary home for at least three years or face recapture of the tax credit amount.
First time home buyers only means you have not owned a principal residence during the three year period prior to the purchase.
Limited time only so applies to homes bought after January 1st 2009, before December 1, 2009.
Tax credit is refundable and can be claimed even if the taxpayer has little or no federal income tax liability to offset. A refund check may be issued to the taxpayer for a portion or even all of the refundable tax credit (depending on the tax payer’s liability).
Aroostook County is the top half of Maine, referred to as “The County” or “The Crown Of Maine”.
Bigger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined and populated with eleven friendly people per square mile. Here are the towns and cities in Aroostook County, many with 40 to 50 people in each township that is 99% percent of the time a six by six mile square logically laid out for
Less people, more unspoiled 4 season scenery. That's Aroostook County.
Aroostook County.
Allagash, Amity, Ashland, Bancroft, Blaine, Bridgewater, Caribou, Cary, Castle Hill, Caswell, Chapman, Crystal, Cyr, Dyer Brook, Eagle Lake, Easton, Fort Fairfield, Fort Kent, Frenchville, Garfield, Glenwood, Grand Isle, Hamlin, Hammond, Haynesville, Hersey, Hodgdon, Houlton, Island Falls, Limestone, Linneus, Littleton, Ludlow, Macwahoc, Madawaska, Mapleton, Mars Hill, Masardis, Merrill, Monticello, Moro, Nashville, New Canada, New Limerick, New Sweden, Oakfield, Orient, Oxbow, Perham, Portage Lake, Presque Isle, Reed, Sherman, Smyrna, St. Agatha, St. Francis, St. John, Stockholm, Van Buren, Wade, Wallagrass, Washburn, Westfield, Westmanland, Weston, Winterville, Woodland
There are unorganized towns where you send you property taxes to the state of Maine in Augusta. Many of the northwest corner Township Range unorganized townships have only a few land owners and a handful of recreation camps or cabins on them.
Parents, friends, neighbors, relatives and the entire local community who has watched a local boy or girl grow up are happy.
Your little league coach, third grade teacher, the person you deliver papers to, people who saw you play a high school sport or listened to the games on the radio, know you. They are watching. You are the future, the next generation. Here is a local Houlton Maine last chapel event video, part of a busy graduation week in the Shiretown.
Lucky to have a son in the video and the last of the four to go thru high school. This one, the youngest bound for Colorado State in the fall.
How is deep is your information, knowledge about Maine?
You know presidents have vacationed here, have homes here, that Maine lobster, blueberries, potatoes, fiddleheads are pretty tasty. It’s obvious Maine is a big state, so far north up here in the right hand corner of the USA that it’s nearly in Canada with New Brunswick and Quebec to the east and west. But what about the nitty gritty, the details, the facts? Tell someone tell you more about the inner workings of this great state of Maine? Love to.
Welcome to Maine 101, and over the next few blog posts on MeInMaine, you will become a Jedi on Maine knowledge, or at least a brown belt. They say air and water are pretty important to life so what is the air like for starters? Bluer skies and brighter stars than you are used to in Maine. No pollution/ Fewer people, fewer yard lights, less light or air pollution.
The Maine climate is divided into three regions. Coastal, southern interior, northern interior. I live in Aroostook County, as north as you can get of the sixteen Maine counties in an area the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island where we mow the lawn two less times a year, where we get white fluffy snow, not freezy icy rain. The Northern interior climate zone comprises roughly 60% of Maine. It may get into the 90 degree range nearly 25 days of the year. The north can have up to 2 months of sub zero temperatures but not for extended days straight thru the winter months. Outdoor recreation from snowsledding, ice fishing, snow shoeing, downhill / cross country skiing, skating and hockey are big recreational sports in Maine. Snowfall is up to 110 inches annually in the Northern interior areas of Maine. January is the snowiest of the year with about 20 inches of snow to play in Maine. Winter temperatures average around 20 degrees.
Enough about the weather of Maine..although weather is a big topic of conversation anyway you go. Now some flash card facts for the quizz we are going to have tomorrow.
Maine has 1.2 million people, is about 320 miles long, 210 miles wide. 33,215 square miles means Maine is nearly as big as the other five New England states combined. Maine has 6000 lakes and ponds, 32,000 miles of rivers and streams, 17 million acres of woods, 5,000 miles of coastline and 2,000 islands.
(Tap tap tap on blackboard) Now class, try to stay focus..I know this is alot to throw at you about Maine..but to really enjoy the state, you have to know the basics. Now, Maine has over 540,000 acres in state and national parks, including the 100 mile Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Acadia National Park is the second mos visited national US park. Baxter State Park with its mile high Mt Katahdin is on the northern end of the Appalachian Trail.
Okay, okay, I know you are worried about the quizz tomorrow but here are some extra credit Maine facts to study tonight. Maine’s state animal is the moose, the capital Augusta, the state insect the Honeybee, the bird the Chickadee, the fish the Landlocked Salmon, the tree the White Pine. You’re rolling now. The Maine state soft drink is Moxie, state motto Dirigo (I lead), state gemstone the Tourmaline, state cat the Maine Coon Cat, the state herb Wintergreen, state floral emblem White Pine Cone and Tassel. Maine is the country’s largest blueberry growing state, with 98% of the low bush blue gems feeding the world. The Maine potato ranks third in production and acreage in the US.
And to wrap up, Maine has 65 lighthouses with President George Washington commissioning the Portland Maine Head Light. Nearly 40 million pounds of Maine lobster are harvested annually. Shell fish and fin fish add up to over 200 million pounds shipped around the world from Maine alone. These are some facts about Maine, the Pine Tree State. Class dismissed.
Television and cable has lots of reality shows pitting average Joes and Janes against each other for viewer pleasure.
The contestants that don’t make the cut cry, carry on and the ones that go on to round two are happy, estatic…for now. Why are the shows popular? For starters, from a production standpoint, they are cheap to produce. Talent off the street, pick an exotic setting and use the grand hotel, estate or water back ground and voila. And back to why they are popular? We have to watch what they feed us and reality is a strong genre right now. And putting ourselves in the place of the winner, the loser does what? A vicarious thrill of being something we are or are not and seeing ourselves in some of the contestant crowd that competes in sports, beauty, life skill. Where do you fit in and what show would you like to be on?
Is the life stage you are on where you want to be or would you like to be the next top amateur hobby farmer. Come to Maine. Would you like to run a small mom and pop grocery or buy some apartment rentals to fix up and putter on? Come to Maine. If you just want to relax on a lake, river or own you own pond or waterfront property, come to Maine. Maine, get here as fast as you can. Let me help you gain access to the state of Maine’s MLS listings and tell you about everything available in Southern Aroostook County, Northern Washington / Penobscot Counties for real estate in all price ranges, types, locations.
They are good questions. The issues they raise out of concern for public safety and investment protection would be standard in other areas.
For example, if someone asks where are the bad areas, or shady seedy crime riddled areas to avoid in Aroostook County, or Northern Maine, you have to smile. The poser is thinking city, crime, shanty town areas of gangs, no respect for personal property or even human life. You know, the kind of areas in cities where you don’t go through unless you absolutely have to. And you roll through those stop signs, keep your eyes front and center, don’t make visual contact and avoid anyone you meet becoming skilled at the survival tactic of not being noticed. Non confrontation, like a spec of dust masterful of blending in, passing through, fearing for your life. We don’t live like that in Aroostook County. We wave at each other, help each other, need each other, respect exists for our neighbors, friends, and in many cases family members.
You don’t carry a taser. You car and home are not even locked. The keys in the vehicles sitting in the yard may look inviting to someone who’s brother owns a chop shop if we were in an urban setting. But we are not. Never will be. Our location insulates us. Stolen cars are common place in population centers. But consider a map of Maine (pointing to Houlton Maine, on the Canadian border of New Brunswick)…and ask yourself, who is going to travel this far north, to not find many exotic cars to steal knowing there is a variable arsenal of local law enforcement that is ready but not faced with this problem? No need to
Maine Rivers To Canoe, Kayak Can Be Like Glass Smooth In The Early Morning Hours.
curb a situation that does not exist. In the case of Houlton Maine, the Troop F State Police are headquartered here, there is a sea of white and green striped US Border Patrol agents exploring the highways and back road border crossings, local Aroostook County Deputy Sheriffs, local Houlton ME Police and one other key element for crime that is missing here. We have respect for other people’s personal property, respect for how hard folks work and how you would not want something stolen or vandalized if the shoe was on the other foot.
So when I get asked a common question as a Maine real estate broker of where are the bad areas, the neighborhoods to avoid, I smile. There are no bad towns, no crime infested areas. With 11 people, not a 1000 good and bad folks per square mile, crime is the country’s 4th lowest for the Pine Tree State. The northern most county,Aroostook is half that state percentage again.
The only “bad town” is one located further away from work or health care or the school activities your youngsters’s are in because of the drive time distance and extra cost of gas getting to and fro.
It’s the hassle and gas, car wear and tear element, not crime that concerns folks here. For example, Haynesville Maine has 136 folks in an area six by six miles. It’s 22 miles from Houlton Maine. Last check Hersey Maine had around 45 folks full time in the same land area, the typical grid for all over this part of the state. People get along and there is space, not
Picnics, Enjoying And Respecting The Maine Countryside And People.
tension or squabbles over being jammed in or any need to defend every square inch of real estate. It’s like being at Disney Land, and no line at Space Mountain, not many people for that matter to get in the way, to watch out for or avoid. The situation does not exist which comes with the territory of elbow to elbow urban areas.
Another common questions that might need to be raised in other parts of the country. This one not involved cities. Do the mineral rights in Maine, the water, everything under the ground come with this property? Yes, in nearly 30 years of selling northern Maine real estate, I have had two instances where some older codger thought there was gold in those hills and mineral rights were excluded, not conveyed in a deed. Two out of thousands of transactions which shows the question is not posed very often. Aroostook County Maine, get here quick as you can. This Maine FAQ video may help you too!
