Category: Maine Real Estate

Houses In Maine, The Kind That Are Not The Norm.

Small Maine towns have lots of different housing stock that reflect the walks of life and the size of the pay checks of their owners.

Through the years the shift from many family farm, New England type housing multi story structures with auxiliary barns, chicken houses, machine sheds and barns have shifted to more efficient, modest one floor ranch style homes.

Maine Housing Is Working Farm Houses, Blue Collar Simple Capes, Ranches And Not Swanky, Designed To Impress.

Roam up and town the main streets of most small Maine towns and you see the capes, colonials, federal and bungalow home designs.

Along the coast the grander sea captain homes with the glass widow’s walks on top. To scan the open water for the return of the skipper of the vessel piloting it over the choppy seas beyond the breakwater of the protected Maine harbors. That are dotted with Greek Revival, Queen Anne, Mansard and English Tudor style homes.

County seats have a little more austere housing stock and reflect the center of industry and services provided due to the designation as capital of one of the sixteen counties Maine is brought to have. But … housing that is not the norm and simple, straight forward, functional.

The Tourist Areas Around MDI, Acadia National Park Have Housing That Is A Tad Bigger, Fancier, Higher Price Tagged.

Maine has pockets of that too that are a little out of character with the rest of the designs that you typical find along the highways and byways of small town and rural country living.

Case in point, ski chalets at your bigger mountains like Sugarloaf USA, Sunday River. Compounds around Walker Point in Kennebunkport Maine.

And in Bar Harbor Maine, I have heard seventy five percent of the nation’s wealth was concentrated in vacation homes, estates along the rugged, rocky coastline in that Mount Desert Island community.

What was in Bar Harbor Maine for housing stock of the rich and famous is no longer so historically original though.

Your Cup Of Tea For A Maine Home? Pretty, Ugly, Or In Between?

New homes with larger square footages, more palatial features built by carpenters pushed to out do another neighbor’s housing stock sticks and bricks.

Driven by the size of the wallet or expanse of the ego of the family name behind whatever was framed and embellished for all to envy.

Old money wealth and Nouveau riche explained, the different degrees noted in this link. It is better to be humble and sensitive to the needs of others when you have wealth.

Using it to benefit others and not bring attention to yourself always plays best.

What changed the landscape of Bar Harbor Maine’s earlier housing stock was a fire in 1947.

Winds fanned the flames and quick destruction happened, caused ashes to what was because of the Bar Harbor Maine 1947 fire. What once was is captured in a few black and white images,news accounts, magazine reports but essentially lost in a puff of smoke.

Homes On The Coast Of Maine, Along Main Street Of County Seats Are Higher Scaled, More Attention Getting. And Not The Norm.

In a recent coastline tour and after listening to the history and some gossip colored by time, I snapped a few images from the bow of a Bar Harbor Maine sight seeing boat.

These images show cliff top estates, housing stock that is not the typical Maine down to Earth simple or purely functional working homes. And much of what you see does not have much age on it.

Many are uninhabited but highly maintained for when the owners of the estates who have lots of other venues to call a vacation home to pay a visit.

For a tourist that arrives by cruise ship, dropping anchor in the harbor and carried by a smaller tender boat. To walk the gang plank. To land on shore to shop til you drop for nick knacks and momentos stamped with the five letters that mean Vacationland just like the license plate promises.

But not knowing what they see in the highly commercial tourist attractions is not a true reflection of all of Maine.

Heading In To Bar Harbor Maine. (Pronounced BAH-HAR-BAR) And Did You Know Humorist Tim Sample Is From Fort Fairfield Maine, Not A Coastal Town Chummy?

To get that you need to paddle your canoe or sea kayak, to tack just so with your sailboat further north.

Up the coast line to places like Lubec, Eastport in Downeast Maine.

Or to the interior sections of central and Northern Maine. That is the still trapped in time, the same as all of Maine once was. Those are not where you find your luxury housing in Maine.

Lower key, a lot of the same, more down to Earth happens with the houses we call home in deeper recesses of Maine.

Hard working folks maintaining, preserving what an earlier generation relative crafted working to make ends meet in small Maine towns.

That is a lot of the housing stock of Maine that is form follows function. And the function is not to impress, no hint of la de da or ooh la la. It was more rural farming, coastal fishing, timber harvesting related uses and housing applications you will find the more time you spend in Maine.

Get to all of Maine.

Family Fun. Make A Splash, Paddle Around A Maine Coastal Community.

Have you been to Maine, do you know what the state looks, feels, smells, sounds like beyond the high points that the path if well worn ? Read her cover to cover. Not just nibble around the edges to experience Maine.

Get to hidden spots that you have to look hard to find. To see the less traveled trails in the nooks and crannies of this drop dead gorgeous state.

Maine, get to sample ME as often, as soon as you can. See what you are missing in Maine, the way life should be. Come for a day, stay a lifetime.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730

July 2, 2016
The Beauty Of Maine, Space Is A Big Part Of The Magic.

What is the attraction to a big place like Maine?

Space, lots of it. Not worrying about interfering with any other person’s privacy, happiness, their personal life enjoyment. And likewise, no other of our fellow man or woman bumping into our bubble.

And it snow balls from there. More space, less or no people in an underpopulated rural state like Maine means the local water resources and the land turf is not over used and abused.

It Is The Prettiest Weed I Can Think Of… Lupines.

Like a home where no one is around to clutter it up, there is not so much housekeeping to perform to pick up after yourself, someone else.

And the folks that return to Maine for the solitude have a respect. Developed like the die hard locals. To carry in, pick it up and tread lightly. Leave everything like you found it or in better shape if possible as you become a vigilant, good steward.

And when you have a lot of people to herd like an urban area does, there are layers of players.

Plenty of thickly stacked permits, regulations to apply and slow everything to an expensive crawl. To corral and keep everyone in line with lots of rules.

Clusters Of Lupine, Sometimes They Are More Spaced And Scattered.

Plenty of crowd control applications and lots of little bureaucratic kingdoms to arm wrestle with in the hurry up and take a number, have a seat. To maneuver around to get even the smallest of stuff accomplished in an overbooked life.

In small rural Maine traffic is gone. Replaced with outdoor beauty, scenery, wildlife, wooded sections, waterways, open space. We use the land, create wealth from the dirt in so many versions of farming.

Delays getting cross town to appointments, return to the hardware store for the right wicket, to pick up bread and milk… all the errands are quick, simple, no road rage elevating the temperature under the driver’s collar.

Crime stats peg us at the fourth lowest for breaking the law.

Eye contact made, manners displayed with an extra helping of consideration. There is a small town, intimate connection in Maine communities. A tight wrapped we’re all in this together and aren’t we all lucky to live here the way life should be.

Day Is Done In Maine. Fresh Rain, Sunset Sunshine Combine.

Is it like that where you are now? Do cars get stolen, windows broken to steal the contents? Maine keys in rural areas never leave the ignition, house doors left unlocked too. Because we are far enough away and folks are taught as little grasshoppers to respect other people’s feelings, their personal property too.

Lower cost house and car insurance because the price tag for both types of coverage is lower. Because the real estate prices are closer to the ground.

Like I said, it snowballs. The extras that combine from the long list of what we don’t have that you don’t want but have to grin and bear it, just accept with a bite the bullet by choosing to live in the city.

Combined it all with the natural beauty a place like four seasons Maine is famous for and that word is getting out about thanks to people buzzing on the Internet.

Have you been on the fence about living in a place like Maine?

Or at least investing in a piece of it for the R and R we all need to unplug, recharge? Thank you for following our Me In Maine blog posts and eyeballing the imagery that the copy wraps around as we hunt and peck about the place we all love so much. Maine, it may just be what has been missing in your life.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207/.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730

June 21, 2016
Opening Up The Maine Lake Camp, Cottage, Summer Home.

The place in Maine on the water, whether it is a river camp, a woods cabin on a stream or a lake vacation home.

Opening it up is a tradition. Sometimes a production. One that reminds the owner of the others in the family before them that did the same routine. Or that this is too much work for one person to shoulder the burden. That sometimes seems to be like batting clean up long after the game ended.

What Happens Under The Sun Another Day In Maine. It Depends On You. Being Here In Vacationland.

To pick up after other far traveling family members who are not so tidy. And steal the joy of using the place that has a job jar before that can be accomplished in the too little time, so much to do.

The opening up of a Maine vacation retreat. Sometimes in the spring or often times in the fall for hunting, leaf peeking. Maybe for winter ice fishing, snow sledding only. But no matter what the season, places on the water in Maine are a sacred investment. Sometimes on leased land in the middle of no where in places “T” this, “R” that.

Many waterfront properties in Maine just idle, waiting, sitting.

Some folks collect second, third and more homes that they don’t get to enjoy but hope to someday. Paying the property tax bills but not darkening their doorways. With no dock out, no boat parked on either side of it.

Time carved out of a busy schedule to make sure the place on the water is enjoyed is a healthy habit. As life ticks by whether you do or don’t.

Big meals, cribbage games, outdoor horseshoe competitions, time napping on a porch swing or dooryard hammock. Family discussions, talking about the fish that got away. The wildlife that sauntered by while enjoying hot coffee or a cold adult beverage.

Wave, Be Friendly, Everyone Is In Maine.

Take your pick, select your poison for fire water. While cooking your food outdoors with a sizzle happens. As kayaks ply the like a bottle smooth, polished lake surfaces.

Or as rain peppers the metal roof that may leak or not depending this opening day season. On what that blow down tree did that let loose over, struck the structure sometime over the winter months.

At least it produces some firewood in the clean up. When processed and cut up in bite size pieces for the parlor stove or end heater.

Everything reduced down to turning up the volume on the greater awareness of what is truly important in life.

You can hear yourself think in Maine. So much of the layers of living in a city are reduced one by one the more reflectorized mile markers that click off on the way up the I-95 pike. When you point whatever you drive north.

And often what is found is missing where the property owner spends most of their time chasing the dollar the bulk of the year. It all shows up right on time. Traveling the many miles that separate the two of you. Many moons distant, down the road from the state of Maine where the property owner chases the dollar where all the people collect.

Come Up For Air To Spy On Lake Campers With Bread Morsels.

The smell of the familiar place on the Maine waterfront is the most powerful.

The sense of smell the oldest of the senses a person uses to navigate in life. Follow your nose like Toucan Sam.

A mixture of damp, moist wood, earth underneath the settling camp structure. Lack of heat and a proper foundation makes a place shift, settle.

The dust, collection of house flies and any other rodent who used the place as the winter home all add to the what you find, what you notice in the beak. Moth balls to protect clothes, wool blankets might be noticed too as you unlock and enter the place in Maine on the waterfront.

The quick throw everything mad dash. From lawn chairs to lawn mowers inside on the screened or glass porch if lucky enough to have one. Underneath a camp if elevated enough or equipped with a hatch door. Maybe into a storage shed for the outdoor toys, cooking and sporting gear.

Or all escorted in to the living area in one big last call type hurry as the bright house lights come on, the music stops. Is what greets you after a long drive north to open up for another six month’s later or more season. Who did this… you did this. Oh yeah.

There is a lot of work involved with a second home in Maine.

Storm damage, regular maintenance, or renter fatigue. Waiting on professionals that don’t want to really fiddle with the little pain in the neck jobs that are piddly. Don’t pay a lot.

Maine. We Stick Together, Like Momma Duck, The Kids In Tow.

Not so much on the to do list, the depth and width of the job jar with a simple woods or Maine lake place that has just bare bone comforts though. When it is not a two or more star lodging.

Maybe that still uses an outhouse and the bath on Saturday night is a ritual out front carrying a bar of Ivory soap, with a towel on shore to dry off after the dip that refreshes. Helps you sleep on a hot summer night at a Maine lake, waterfront place.

Where crickets, loons, honking Canadian geese provide the back ground music that Maine is famous for if you are lucky enough to be parked next to the waterfront.

Do you vacation in Maine on the water?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | mailto:info@mooersrealty.com|

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730

May 24, 2016
You Hear The Wind, No Motor | Maine Soap Box Derby Racing.

This is the 20th year for the Northern Maine Soap Box Derby Racing Program.

Attended a planning meeting for this year’s race in June last night in Houlton Maine, the state race venue for any boy or girl wanting to participate in the downhill event.

The driver learns a lot about mechanics in the process of soap box derby racing.

Along with Dad, Mom, Uncle Bob or a neighbor, big brother or sister, wrenches have to be turned. Wheel pins and spindles discuss. As the build a car from an Akron Ohio kit process unfolds. The large sheet of instructions or online monitor are studied to comply with the rules of racing.

Maine’s Soap Box Derby Racing Program, The Big Race Is In June!

Years ago it was just buy your axles, then on your own with the creative design. Using whatever you had kicking around or wanted. Now to keep it as fair as possible. And to add to the competitive nature of derby racing, a strict set of parts are used by all car sponsors, drivers.

But the devil is always in the details. Of a million little things to give the driver and his or her car a little bit of an legal edge. An advantage learned over time.

With each run down lane one or two of the Houlton Maine race track hill.

When you hear the launch operator ask are you ready drivers? And each lane is reminded we have a green up here on topside. For the release on 3,2,1. But more runs down derby hill do make the difference.

That is the magic of anything worthwhile in life.

To study, practice, become more expert in the application. Derby families know from experience what works and why. What does not and to avoid. Just watch, ask them, listen and learn.

So, if you are a business looking for a new “ride” for your advertising, branding, consider buying a derby race car. Having a contest of some type to select a driver. For years of use for this marketing tool. And the goodwill it creates with one driver who sticks with derby racing. Or a series of drivers who slide behind the wheel each year for a turn of finding out. What all this “Thrill Of The Hill” business buzzing around is all about for themselves.

Become a part of the Maine derby racing program and the friendly, spirited competitive downhill gravity racing.

Watch a couple videos for Maine Soap Box Derby Racing.

Please visit the soap box derby website for Maine.

Along with lots of volunteers that have been part of derby racing in Maine for years, I look forward to another June derby event. Feeling lucky to be involved in the 20th Maine State Soap Box Derby Race program for another year.

You might consider doing the same by helping a driver, sponsoring a derby car, working on the racing committee or all three.

Reach out to me and will help explain the neat sport of youth downhill soap box derby racing.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton Maine 04730 USA

March 5, 2015
You’re Moving To Northern Maine, Want Internet, Cable, Phone Connected Right?

Staying Connected, Needing To Know Who To Call About Cell, Internet, Cable in Northern Maine.

The Internet cable, phone providers, the options from cable line to wireless for the World Wide Web when relocating, retiring, moving to Northern Maine.

That would be a handy, helpful blog post for one stop shopping right? To save time if someone rounded up the information, the contact numbers and addresses for Internet cable, phone, broadband connections huh?

I thought so too as asked for this Internet broadband connection information often.

This very question posed a lot at our Maine real estate office. And the neat feature of a Maine blog post is hunt and peck, throw in a neat photo, some helpful links and ta da. Voila. Something useful jettisoned out onto the information highway. Uploaded to the clouds for others to glean and save time, money, frustration.

Because more and more you and I “google” for anything we want, need more details on right?

We have a lot of Maine real estate customers who bring their online job with them and “telecommute” to work in Maine. Self employed or bringing their old employment with them in the Maine move. Don’t need a job, already have one of those they are trained and ready to pack up in the move to Maine.

So for your standard land line phone or Internet service in Aroostook County.

Fairpoint.com is your contact (bought out by Consolidated Communications). Their residential service center office is opened 8am to 6pm Monday through Friday. Punch or tap tap and probably not dial 1.866.984.2001 for a representative of Consolidated Communications.

Polaris Cable was another option for a high speed Internet connection. Also digital phone service, channel packages for your viewing pleasure too. Bundling is the new communications hokey pokey that all the providers are doing right? Hey. But Time Warner Cable took them over and re-laced the town with lines. Ring them up for a voice channel connection at 207.532.2579. Time Warner is located at 34 Military Street,Houlton, ME 04730. Someone is there Monday – Friday from 8:00am – 5:00pm.

Cut To The Chase, Maine Frankness Keeps It Simple And Honest. Is There Internet Broadband In That Location Or Not?

Pioneer Broadband Wireless is another option to not lose your broadband, high speed connection with the rest of the planet in your move to Northern Maine.

Technical support hours: Monday – Friday, 7:30am – 6:00pm. Reach out and phone them at 207.532.1254 or 1.866.335.1254. Email Pioneer Broadband.

The area code for the entire state of Maine is easy, a lonely 207.

Just Shy Of A Mile High, Mt Katahdin In Winter Fly Over.

Just one is all we need for a Maine area code, 207.

There are other Internet providers that can have their black box at the Fairpoint Main office and offer lots of options to razzle dazzle.

GWI is one of those headquartered out of 8 Pomerleau Street Biddeford, ME 04005.

Call toll free 866-494-2020 or contact them, email GWI to get wired, connected. Like most things, Internet broadband connectivity in Maine is a moving target and always improving. That last

Cute Little Shaver Huh? An Earlier Me In Maine Author Image In Black And White. Am I Holding A Cell Phone? (NOooo. A Graham Cracker. )

mile of fiber or copper or the better tower for wireless is constantly being worked on in rural Maine. Where folks depend on Internet for work employment, distance learning education, for tele-medicine, to tap into online entertainment recreation.

I have cell service from Verizon, have had US Cellular and both provide good coverage.

Have friends who rave about T Mobile that have lots of kids on the plan. Study beyond the introductory offer, get the whole story with full disclosure for the long haul. So your head does not spin and you know you have the best plan for you today. That you know won’t be the last one you sign up for on the dotted line for the free phone upgrade.

Direct TV and Dish are two big heavy hitters here and else where. The links are sitting, hot and live to double click if you need them.

For fixing your computer contact Doug Boreland at Virtual Tech. Or Barrett Quint at Aroostook Media.

So compare and be prepared nothing stays the same in the ever changing telecommunications field.

As digital fiber Internet is being systematically offered around the Houlton Maine area street by street. Discover Northern Maine.

Some helpful information for anyone relocating, retiring, moving to Northern Maine and questions it raises that need answers. Hope this blog post helped in that regard. It’s is why we hammer them out one by one to save a hassle getting online information when not so many entries exist. Rural states like Maine are like that.

Maine, big state, lots of space, friendly down to Earth people with plenty of common sense live here. Hope this blog posts on Internet Broadband service providers, on cell phone and cable operators helps save you time and money.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 |info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

April 11, 2013
Haunted Houses In Maine… Means They’re Worth More.

Horror Writer, Maine\’s Stephen King Home On West Broadway, Bangor ME

Maine haunted houses, as a real estate broker in Vacationland, I would suggest they are worth more.

Especially if Bangor Maine horror writer Stephen King decided the spook inhabited home would make a good movie set. King and his wife Tabitha live in a pretty neat West Broadway Maine victorian house iron gated and off the street.

Regardless if you believe in spirits, moaning ghosts, former inhabitants with clanging chains that just won’t let go and head over to the great beyond, haunted houses happen. Because imaginations create them.

And if a Maine property has a reputation spun by a story teller, we disclose it.

And the buyer may laugh going in. But if new home owners suddenly find buyers avoid it like the plague on resale, they know, were told what to expect. That a segment of the home audience gets skiddish, squeamish. It happens with Maine haunted houses.

Some people don’t believe in God, so spooks are not going to move the needle either.

Not cause the smallest stir. Because they are in control and tough as board nails, rock solid in their convictions about how things roll around them. Believing in only what they can see. Not putting stock, having any faith in what they can not.

A John Jay, a local Hodgdon Maine native create a lot of stories about a home he used to own that he said was haunted. It started with moving into it years ago and returning from Orient Maine to the south at the end of the day to find everyone he left inside suddenly outside. In the yard and lights flickering on and off. Haunted? Maybe. Poor electrical system, most assuredly. But that is where the tales of being haunted started.

If a buyer of a Maine home loses it for lack of payment of the loan, property taxes, sour grapes happens too.

Lots Of Spooks, Might Be Halloween Haunted This Patten ME Home.

This same home was a old Farmer’s Home repossession and more stories got added to the fire John Jay started. That circulated around the local grapevine. Because the former owner of the Maine home would not cite the real reason they left… lack of payments for house loan, heat, property taxes. Nasty or even friendly divorce splits can throw a wreck into home ownership in Maine too.

Easier to say it is haunted, and vacated for that reason not because they lost it in foreclosure.

When the public sees folks, buyers, sellers, renters coming and going it adds to the haunted suspicion surrounding the Maine real estate too.

I talked to a renter of this home in Maine I’ve sold a few times over the years. He claimed he threw his winter wood supply in to the cellar helter skelter. And awoke the next day to neatly stacked rows assembled in the basement. Haunted? Maybe by Casper, the friendly, helpful ghost.

This renter went on to say he went to bed several nights with party chips on the coffee table and the next morning they were gone. I asked, do you have a dog? Yes. I had one that loved chips as much as I do. Not trying to be a doubting Thomas but…..

One buyer from Rhode Island that I shared the stories with of the home he wanted to buy being haunted was not daunted. After the sale I asked if he had experiences with anything paranormal and he said one word and smiled.

Give Me A Beat To Go Along With The Sweets. Light Shows For This Halloween Trick Or Treat Pit Stop.

Rolaids.

He could not keep them in the Hodgdon Maine home. Evidently Casper has an upset stomach. Too much acid reflex caused with his diet of whatever ghosts munch on, nibble. Besides dead bodies, young children or whatever the standard dining fare en vogue.

Haunted homes in Maine, the notoriety can increase the value just as much as it hurts the sticker price.

Depends on the Maine home buyer and how well they sleep at night. Their past experiences and if every creak, groan caused by a strong northwest, northeast gust of a northern Maine wind keeps them wide eyed and scared stiff. Looking for affordable real estate, friendly people, no traffic? Maine, neat state, a lot of story tellers spinning yarns that some swallow hook, line and sinker.

I’m Maine Broker Andrew Mooers, ME REALTOR
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

October 31, 2012