Retirement in Maine? (Portland, Ellsworth, Union: low crime, house, buying)

[yuban100]

We are looking for place in Maine for our retirement. We would love to have a small farm on the coastal line, located in decent town, low crime, lots restaurants, maybe not too many children.
Any suggestions? Just wandering how is the property tax at maine?

[mrs1885]

I'd like to know about the property taxes too. We've been looking up around Eastport and Ellsworth at property to build something for summer months. I found on realtor.com a piece of land - 93.6 acres for $59000 and it says it's waterfront. I can't imagine that can be right, but it's there.

Here's the link if you want

[forest beekeeper]

Generally if you stay far away from the realtors you will find many nice homes, farms and lots for fairly low prices.

I bought our riverfront forest lot [42 acres] at about $900 per acre.

My SIL bought her 105 acre forest lot for about $350 per acre.

Both are year-round accessible, with county maintained road. Power, phone, DSL all available at the pavement. Just a few minutes away from a freeway on-ramp [7 miles].

Our taxes are fairly low. About $1.05 per acre per year. Last year was $47

[mrs1885]

Wow!! That is awesome. So the huge lot I found for next to nothing may not be a typo after all. Holy smoke!! That does it, hubby's getting this thread and this info and we're buying in Maine! Wow.....

[Mark S.]

So Forest, I've noticed in a lot of your posts that you recommend home-shopping without a realtor to save money. If you don't mind my asking: How do you go about finding listings? Are they in the classifieds? Do you just ask around?

[mrs1885]

realtor.com

It's awesome! When we moved from Florida to Tennessee last year I spent about a month before we left pouring over the state map, entering towns and adding all the towns that surrounded it that we were interested in.

By the time we got here I had a list of about 50+ homes that were listed and 10+ towns with all the data from city-data.com. Hubby and I made a list of the things that were important to us and how important they were. Ie: we wanted a few acres for horses, we wanted at least a 3 bedroom house but prefered a 5 or more bedroom (big family, lots of kids), wanted a small town that was well below US average for crime, within driving distance of a major city for big time shopping, price range, etc.

From there we kind of assigned each of our preferances a certain point from 1-10. Then we tallied what we had and the top 12 homes that scored highest we went through. By the time we met the realtor I'd pulled the top 5 we liked. She took us to see a house she liked first. It was more than double what we wanted to spend. So I pulled out my handy-dandy binder I'd put together with all the homes and info on the different towns. The first I pulled out, she'd never heard of the town and had to do some research just to find it for us. Turns out that was the house we wound up buying. She said she'd never have thought of pulling something like that to show us.

I'm all about searching via internet and making lists and assigning how important each preference is to you. But in the end, it's really tough to find what you want without having to call a realtor. They do make it easier in the end, just don't let them steer you around. Remember, you employ them!

[forest beekeeper]

I came up in to Maine a number of trips and each time, I had an appointment with a realtor. I met the realtor, got a stack of MLS listings from them and went out driving around to look at each of them. Then returned the next day to the realtor's office to speak with the realtor about each of the properties that I had looked at. I did this routine for a week, and then returned to Ct. And made arrangements to return and do it all again.

However each time as I did this, I would end up sitting little the small diners that are everywhere in Maine. Talking to locals, waitresses, cooks, and folks. In most cases, these good local folks almost always would start rattling off "well Fred Schmidlap bought the old McDonald dairy, he divided it up into 10 acre lots and he is selling them. Here is his phone number and ..."

Since I was dealing with realtors, and I did not feel that it was ethical to make arrangements under the table like that, I never did go along with any of those locals.

Until after my Fourth trip to Maine. During that trip I was getting just so frustrated. That I finally called one of those hand-written phone numbers on a sign nailed to a tree. I met that couple, they gave me a four page list of all their properties, and I drove around looking at some of those properties.

[Acadianlion]

Originally Posted by yuban100

We are looking for place in Maine for our retirement. We would love to have a small farm on the coastal line, located in decent town, low crime, lots restaurants, maybe not too many children.
Any suggestions? Just wandering how is the property tax at maine?

You can indeed accomplish all of this. Maine has many such locations and many of them are in fact available. Since you have specified "lots of restaurants" and "decent town", I would assume that you are thinking of something along the lines of Sausalito, California.

You will be looking at Cumberland and York Counties for sure. Plan on spending between $1 and $5 million dollars and plan on property taxes being in the $50,000 per year range.

The killer in your inquiry is the word "town" and "lots" in referral to restaurants.

Maine is a big state for New England and there are around many fewer than one and one half million people here. Most of them live within 50 miles of the City of Portland, the county seat of Cumberland County in the southwest corner of the state near New Hampshire. This is where residential property in "coastline" towns are the most expensive.

Land is plentiful and available in more rural areas, but if you are looking for suburbia, it will be as expensive as most other suburban areas.

[Acadianlion]

Originally Posted by mrs1885

I'd like to know about the property taxes too. We've been looking up around Eastport and Ellsworth at property to build something for summer months. I found on realtor.com a piece of land - 93.6 acres for $59000 and it says it's waterfront. I can't imagine that can be right, but it's there.

Here's the link if you want

No doubt. But remember, Ellsworth is the second largest city in the United States. Second only to Los Angeles, and they have recently cheated by absorbing several smaller outlying townships.

Ellsworth is fortunate to have many lakes, and the Union River running through it, so I would imaging this large piece of land might well be thirty miles from the center of town, and on a very marshy, or boggy section of wetlands.

[mensaguy]

Originally Posted by Acadianlion

No doubt. But remember, Ellsworth is the second largest city in the United States. Second only to Los Angeles, and they have recently cheated by absorbing several smaller outlying townships.

Ellsworth is fortunate to have many lakes, and the Union River running through it, so I would imaging this large piece of land might well be thirty miles from the center of town, and on a very marshy, or boggy section of wetlands.

Huh? New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington DC, etc., etc. These are all smaller than Ellsworth? Dang! I've been wrong about this for a long time.