Where are you going? (Portland, Bangor: real estate, rent, home)

[jenkaye]

Originally Posted by WhoFanMe

Great post Jen. One thing I've always loved about Maine is that you can step in that horse poo in your orchard and be 25 minutes from the city and the airport. My wife would also say the mall, but I'll leave that to her.

Love it!!!

[Eastport4me]

Good post jenkaye.

[Boomerang]

Right now I'm located in midcoast Maine for employment, and have been exploring all the towns within commuting distance; from Gardiner in the north to Cumberland in the south, over to Gray in the west, back up to Sabattus/Litchfield areas. Woolwich to Wiscasset area along Rt 1 is real pretty, but I think I want to stay closer to the 295-95 corridors.

I'm torn between a) wanting to recapture my past life in Maine (farm in sparsely populated area of the western mountain region) by buying a bigger place a little farther "out" and maybe getting some animals again, and b) realizing that I've come to appreciate proximity to conveniences in the more populated areas and being able to travel at a moment's notice without worrying about who's going to babysit the critters while I'm gone. When I lived on the farm it was no big deal to drive 45 minutes to get to a grocery store larger than the one 7 miles away that sold beer and bait. Now I'm spoiled by living 20 minutes from both Hannaford Bros and Target Decadence!!!

I'm leaning towards Gray-New Gloucester because I'm still entranced by hilly countryside. In an perfect world - where I win the Powerball jackpot - I guess I'd move to Fryeburg or maybe just over the NH line, for those glorious mountain views. Not that there aren't pretty mountains elsewhere in Maine, but Conway NH has really great tax-free shopping ...I should note, I almost never buy anything but I do like to look and people-watch...

[dramamama6685]

I'm pretty sure most of you know from previous posts that Eastport is our choice. How we came about it. My DH's dad's side ahd originally settled there. He used to go up for family vacations on occasion as his grandparents retired there.

Though we vacation only every 4 or more years, we decided to skip the Florida trip so that he could share Eastport with me and our daughter. We fell in love. I wanted to move immediately and he was in shock that I liked in so much. OUr daughter felt the same way (though she is not a fan of cold weather).

However, this was less than a month before high school started for her and I knew that if we didn't move quickly, her mind would change. Sure enough by the time that it sunk in with him, she was unwilling.

Now we have decided it would be more prudent to wait until she is out of college as she commutes only 45 mins. away, and settled before we do anything (at that time we may also end up waiting on a wedding). Of course, we may wait until we have enough to retire on just to be safe side.

When we move, we want no regrets and to never look back!

[mollysmiles]

Jenkaye I love your post!!

[Mainer61]

I've lived in Rockport/Rockland my whole life...Rockport has an excellent school system. It's a very nice, community-involved area. My family is gone now so we decided to move Downeast....BIG mistake. No jobs, no work ethic. We are so disappointed ... there is nothing there and everything is more expensive than in other areas of the state. We are thinking of moving to Aroostook County...I hope we can get rid of both houses (Rockport and Downeast) FAST.

[Bydand]

Mainer61 please don't expect to save much up here in "The County". It is a nice place, and the town you are looking at is one of my favorites up here, but, it is expensive to live here. Let me know if you need any info on Fort, I'm there about 3 times a week.

[CapeCodder]

Great question Elcarim!

We started to look at the towns inbetween Waterville and Augusta because there seemed to be a good amount of choices in the job market. Then we started narrowing down towns. Readfield was the best of both worlds for us. It's absolutely gorgeous here. The mountain views are stunning...we're right next to all the lakes...and yet we're close to town and municipal offices. Taxes on this property are fairly low (shhhh)...although Readfield isn't one of the lowest by far.
We just sort of stumbled into this property. It had only been on the market for a week or so and hadn't had any showings (there were some really ugly photos of it online due to snow and mud and basically poor photography by the realtor) we almost didn't come look at it THAT'S how bad the photos were...in person the house was awesome, as was the land, and the privacy. It was EXACTLY what we were looking for.
So, we kept our options open for all the towns within a 20 mile radius around the two bigger "cities". I can't tell you how many houses we looked at.

[corgis]

For us, Eastport has everything that we need. The IGA has most of the grocery's that we tend to buy and the library is as good as anywhere else. We get all the amenities of a larger city that we require except for evening entertainment and if we want to go out in the evening, the Rose Garden usually has live music of some sort.

We don't require or need to be around lots of people or to be entertained, I am retired and mensaguy is almost retired so we don't have the work/job worries and our children are grown and gone, so it's our time.

We do love being able to take a walk around town any hour of the day or night. We do love that town people know us and most of the time know our business before we do. We love the small town atmosphere and we love stopping to chat with neighbors on or walks. We are pleased when total strangers stop us to comment on the latest work we've completed on the old house. They seem pleased that someone is bringing the house back instead of putting some glass monstrosity in its' place.

We had land in Midcoast for almost 10 years, but we sold it several years ago because the Damarriscotta area was becoming almost too expensive for us.

Eastport is perfect. If we want to go to the Hannaford's or WalMart or Canadian Tire, we make a trip to Calais and across the bridge. We'll be so happy when we are finally moved for good.

[CapeCodder]

Originally Posted by jenkaye

My whole life I have wanted to see Maine.

In my youth I worked with a girl selling Time Shares in Sedona and we became became best friends. We later became roommates and she was from Maine. I loved all the stories about it and laughed over the fact her whole closet was filled with wool sweaters and in Az that's funny. She was on an adventure all the way from Maine and landed in Sedona Az for the warmth and beauty. I wished I could go to Maine and get out of the desert and the heat.

Years and Years later we married around the same times, had kids close together and lived about 45 minutes from eachother saying one day we would live right next to eachother and have coffee and talk about our kids and husbands, run a business together and just have our families near by. Our husbands get along and kids love eachother so it's fun. One day my friend got a call that her brother in law at 18 was killed in a car wreck in Brunswick and our dear friends packed their stuff and moved back home to Maine. Once their feet planted themselves in Maine they didn't look back and knew they were home.

My family has flown out twice to Maine once in Winter once in Summer. It was a dream come true, the beauty of the green trees, the ocean, the food, even the cold, we loved it. I never flew past Texas and my husband had never been on East coast either. We actually got excited when we saw the statue of liberty from the plane which was a speck! We got the bug to move. Auburn was our immediate choice due to our friends living there and praising the school system.

Truth be told the taxes are high there and it makes me nervous. I want to go out to Maine again to really pin point a choice but it would be so much fun to live next to my friend! Southern Maine for sure.

My husband just wants a barn and would love to have horses but I would rather have an orchard, I love trees. I am excited and scared for our family. We are taking this leap but I think it will be good for the kids to get out of this city lifestyle and be raised like my husband and I were in a small town atmosphere. Where you can play outside and be a kid and the technology crap doesn't really matter when you can snowboard.

Plus I have always wanted to live in Maine and why not! One day I will be old may even get sick and may not be able to take adventures....right now I am young and healthy, I want to see and do something different. I have lost loved ones to cancer and my sister in law just passed in July the exact day we landed in Maine to begin our trip. She lived her life and had adventures and did more than most people do in a lifetime....it made me want to take a little more of a risk in life.

So Southern Maine it is and whether I am living next door to my bud, or shoveling horse poo, or taking care of my dear garden and trees I will be in Maine and making memories .

That's a great plan and such a sweet story.
I lived on the Cape for 40 years and pretty much got a wild hair and moved within one year of getting the "moving bug" and I do NOT regret it.
COME ON UP!