Well, here goes. The start to our trek North to Maine, our new home-state. (Portland: loans, motel)

[WhoFanMe]

Originally Posted by Cuffler

Geesh! What you're saying is that now that we're ready to buy we going to buy high after selling low here in our home state of CT. Great. Just what we needed. Actually I've been seeing the nicer homes being cherry picked.

However, understand our plight. We can't buy a house we haven't seen. We can't see a house we're interested in that's too far from our address to make it economical for us to run up there and run back for one single home. We need to have an open field that allows us to search properly comparing properties. We're not buying a summer cottage. This is our last home we'll be buying, for goodness sakes.

The more I ruminate on this whole situation the madder I get. We're getting screwed on every single aspect of this situation: from sale of our place to buying another. God forbid we're stopped by a Maine trooper up there while we're looking to drop 200k in his fair state and he gives us a bucket of crap about 14 days, etc. Holding our collective breaths here.

We have a cousin who has a place in Kennebunkport and they only use it on weekends. We've asked them for a tues and wednesday night so we can visit a few dozen houses. We'll see how that works. If you don't have that kind of asset I don't know what you could do. I've asked my realtor to find someone with a trailer parked in their yard for the time being and if they'd like to make a few hundred bucks.

Rome

I misunderstood, I thought you had already seen the house and loved it. I don't work in the areas that you're looking, I can only tell you that in York and Cumberland Counties, there is so much demand and so little supply that prices are rising rapidly and market times are dropping dramatically. Your agent can tell you what's going on where she works. If you've hired her as a buyer agent, perhaps she preview and video your favorites. This can't last, there has to be a correction coming and perhaps you might want to rent for a year or two.

[WhoFanMe]

Originally Posted by phoebesmom

Maybe you could rent a place up there for the summer and do the 14 day quarantine there--I believe they can rent to you after June 1, although that may not be right.

Then you can look at your leisure and enjoy a Maine summer!

It's the going back and forth that makes this so darn difficult. My son's in-laws left their house in Maine for the summer, and now, if they come back, they are supposed to quarantine for 14 days, too--it's not just for out of staters, it's anyone coming into the state.

We bought something sight unseen because we couldn't keep making trips out--the houses were going so fast, and this one was near enough to my parents' nursing home, which is why we are moving out there to begin with. Of course now we are under lockdown and we can't travel there yet, but I have faith it will work out.

I am not thrilled with the house and it is not the house of my dreams but we can make it work while we help them in their end of life issues.

You are correct, it's not easy to buy or sell a home right now, however with record-low interest rates, pent up demand and few homes to choose from, it's a feeding frenzy. Hopefully you'll own the home long enough to withstand the inevitable ups and downs of the market and you'll come out OK.

[Cuffler]

We are discoving that's it's a very tight market; people who had put off selling last fall are coming on line now and I've discovered a lot of homes with only a few days or weeks on the market mixed in with homes on the market for 300 days +. IT's strange.

We'll survive. We'll make continued forays into Maine in our car with CT plates as we have to and will find that one house that speaks to us. If i can get my cousins place in Kennebunkport as a staging area that would be really helpful and give us access to a lot more in a short time. We'll keep you all posted.

[Cuffler]

Tada! We were invited to use my cousin's place in Kennebunck on Monday and Tuesday nights! So, looks like we've been lucky and will now have a chance to do some home hunting next week. That'll give us plenty of time to have our realtor reconoiter for us as well as us doing some computer work and setting up a schedule and route. I'm hoping against hope that we'll find something early on that really floats our boat. Without our cousin's help, I don't know what we'd do!

So, i'll keep you all posted about our progress as we wander through Knox and Lincoln county early next week. We'll be the people who look lost with Connecticut plates!

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Cuffler

Tada! We were invited to use my cousin's place in Kennebunck on Monday and Tuesday nights! So, looks like we've been lucky and will now have a chance to do some home hunting next week. ...

I love it when a plan comes together.

[phoebesmom]

Good luck!

[nm9stheham]

Originally Posted by Cuffler

Geesh! What you're saying is that now that we're ready to buy we going to buy high after selling low here in our home state of CT. Great. Just what we needed. Actually I've been seeing the nicer homes being cherry picked.

However, understand our plight. We can't buy a house we haven't seen. We can't see a house we're interested in that's too far from our address to make it economical for us to run up there and run back for one single home. We need to have an open field that allows us to search properly comparing properties. We're not buying a summer cottage. This is our last home we'll be buying, for goodness sakes.

The more I ruminate on this whole situation the madder I get. We're getting screwed on every single aspect of this situation: from sale of our place to buying another. God forbid we're stopped by a Maine trooper up there while we're looking to drop 200k in his fair state and he gives us a bucket of crap about 14 days, etc. Holding our collective breaths here.

We have a cousin who has a place in Kennebunkport and they only use it on weekends. We've asked them for a tues and wednesday night so we can visit a few dozen houses. We'll see how that works. If you don't have that kind of asset I don't know what you could do. I've asked my realtor to find someone with a trailer parked in their yard for the time being and if they'd like to make a few hundred bucks.

Rome

Just read this whole thread.. quite the saga! If it makes you feel any better, we have been in the process of selling our rental home on the Outer Banks of NC. Just when we got offers, Dare County NC was shut down... even to non-resident property owners, like us. So we could not get there to repair and fix and make it look good and also to get ready for the summer's renters. And so we took a bit of a hit on price with some easy to fix issues just to move on.... and the buyer has not even physically seen the place! Isn't that crazy? And then NC and Dare County opened up for renters and we had to lose $7k in rents as we had not been able to get it ready for the renters...

So, the virus and all the crazy quilt of state closures and openings has made mincemeat out of the normal real estate process LOL. It'll take a bit more patience to get things back to running normally.

Good luck with your search... we may be joining you soon in 'the thrill of the hunt' but up near Rangeley or Moosehead Lake.

Mark B.

[Cuffler]

I'm not surprised in the least that this shutdown is harming other markets even harder than up here. My realtor says she's seems to be specializing in "way out of town" buyers and she's learned to make better movies for them and address their special issues. Still, I don't know how a movie could supplant a personal visual inspection of a property that you're going to spend thousands of dollars on. No way for us. She's working with people from Montana and a couple of other way-out states. I guess that's what they'll have to settle for. At least we have the "luxury" of driving up and back in a day if we had to. We just don't want to be "forced" to making a decision that will affect the rest of our retirement lives and having us complain that we could have made a better decision. Nope. We're going to try to be critical enough to avoid disappointment in the future.

Good luck! "Outer Banks" sounds as exotic as "Down East"!

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Cuffler

I'm not surprised in the least that this shutdown is harming other markets even harder than up here. My realtor says she's seems to be specializing in "way out of town" buyers and she's learned to make better movies for them and address their special issues.

There are a few realtors who specialize in off-grid remote bare land retreats. Though the only one like that I have met has been NMLM [Northern Maine Land Man]. https://www.city-data.com/forum/memb...an-156658.html

... Still, I don't know how a movie could supplant a personal visual inspection of a property that you're going to spend thousands of dollars on. No way for us. She's working with people from Montana and a couple of other way-out states. I guess that's what they'll have to settle for. At least we have the "luxury" of driving up and back in a day if we had to. We just don't want to be "forced" to making a decision that will affect the rest of our retirement lives and having us complain that we could have made a better decision. Nope. We're going to try to be critical enough to avoid disappointment in the future.

When I came up here shopping for land, I insisted on being able to walk the property lines. I wanted to see for myself what all each parcel had on it.

I was completely blown away that there are some realtors in Maine, who list a property on the MLS without ever stepping foot on the property themselves.

Every summer the parcels adjacent to me in the North, South, and West, each go on the market. Sometimes prospective buyers come down my driveway asking me questions about those parcels. So I take them out and walk the property lines with them.

In the past 15 years, there has only been one realtor who has came out here to walk property lines. And probably 15 prospective buyers.
That realtor caught me by surprise, she showed up in a miniskirt and stiletto heels. I loaned her a pair of my boots and off we went hiking.

[nm9stheham]

Well, here is one aspect that has changed over the years, at least in our neck of the woods (I have yet to see how a standard Maine house purchase contract is structured): The way the contracts are structured allow the buyers to back out pretty late in the game... at the end of the 'Due Diligence' period. That is usually set late in the process to allow for inspections, reviews, and and financing. The buyer can reject a house for many many reasons and just saying 'we are not satisfied with the inspections' can do the trick.



The use of inspectors and inspections has greatly increased over the years..... For folks who don't know house issues and construction, that helps but it often is a false sense of security IMHO. The inspectors often are not all that well qualified and the licensing requirements are not really for knowledge. Plus if they pick apart a house too much, the realtors will shun them, so they have a negative incentive to find 'too much'. They find some things to demonstrate they earned their fee but often miss serious things. And certainly, some of those issues would be hard to impossible to find without taking drywall/plaster off.



So often the real value in inspections is to have a basis to end a deal before closing. This allows some flexibility to the long-distance buyers. Cuffler, with your background, I suspect you are more like me: When I say I'll buy it, I have done my inspections and I will do the deal. And yes, I want to personally see the house. That is not how it is with everybody.