land lease in Maine (Calais, Eastport: for sale, leasing, house)

[kirstenling]

Hello,

I am a frequent visitor of Washington County, ME. and am in love with Maine , it's people, the environment and what I know of it's culture. I would love to move to Washington County or even further North, but the cost of homes and land combined with what seems like a turbulent educational system ( I am a special needs teacher of the deaf/interpreter) have caused me to rethink this dream. I have been told that people can lease land from Maine and or the paper companies for 99 years, can build small cottages, or camps on the land and stay there. This would be an optimal solution for me and my husband, allowing us to return to our home come late fall and begin the school year here. The best of two worlds if you will.

Does anyone have any idea who I might contact to explore the land leasing option? Does anyone have any other information on this that may help me out?

Thanks in advance for your cosideration of this request.
Kirstenling

[DavidoftheNorth]

Here's a possibility:

Domtar
Woodland Mill
144 Main Street
Baileyville ME
04694

Telephone: 207-427-3311
Fax: 207-427-4102
Domtar - Woodland

[mollysmiles]

Kirsten, some of the property is so inexpensive that it would be worth taking a look. Our second house in Eastport was 70K---about $400/month---it is in need of some work, but we can do it a bit at a time. Other parts of the County are even more reasonable. Have you tried that route at all?

[kirstenling]

Davidoftheforest,
thank you so much for your quick and helpful response. I will indeed contact them. Thank you again.

[kirstenling]

David of the North!
Please excuse my error in your name.

[kirstenling]

MollySmiles,Thank you for your quick response. Do you have any counties in particular you might recommend investigating?

[mollysmiles]

I was thinking of Washington County because that's where you'd mentioned and where I live, but it would depend on your preference for location. I like Aroostock County a lot, but would miss the ocean if I were to live there! It's just beautiful though--huge county with small towns and great people. And moose. Lots of moose!

[MaineMathTCHER]

Eastport has several properties under 100$ and it is a wonderful place and the schools are very welcoming to teachers. We own a homes in Perry and Pembroke (close areas) and will get a home in Eastport next. Another town that is wonderful is Robbinston and of course Calais, which has nice homes for about 65,000.

[Duiji]

I work for a land management company and you will be lucky to find any large landowners to lease you land. The majority of leased land is on lakes and most companies have sold or will soon be selling the land. If you buy a camp on a leased lot and that land then goes up for sale you will have the option to buy it, but it may be more than you want to pay. In that case you would need to unload the camp onto someone else wanting to buy the land or load up your camp and move it, which can be done but I don't think it would be easy.

[kellysmith]

Leased land is a thing of the past...or at least it should be...if you plan on putting anything of any value on it. I had one of those $75 a year leases. It was a 99 year lease, but the land owner had the right (in fine print) to alter it for any reason. When the lease got to $1000 a year, I, like many locals with similar leases sold to get something out of my investment. The buildings have little value if you don't own the land under them.

I'm sure many are aware of what happened to the folks with leases on land that Roxanne Quimby purchased. She's the former owner of Bert's Bee's and purchased half of a township near the northern end of Baxter park. All those lease holders were told to remove their property. Bolen Pond Camps was one spot. I seem to remember that property had just changed hands...and the new owners had paid over $1,000,000 for it...and they told were told to get their camps off Ms Quimby's land.

Leased land from paper companies (or anyone else) is definitely not the place for any investment now days.