Year round living in Maine. (Portland, Lewiston: apartment complex, rentals, townhouses)

[YorktownGal]

NYC has changed in the last decade. The pandemic lockdown has not helped. I'm paying too much to live where I can't leave my house.
My house is in Westchester, NY where houses are closing within seven days being listed. New Yorkers are fleeing the city for the suburbs. Many suburban New Yorkers want to be even further away form NYC.


My husband can work from anywhere for the next couple of years before retirement.

1) We would like to be close to Amtrak or an airport.

2) We would like a walkable town.

3) We would like a quiet town with - for the most part - year round residents. We don't want to find ourselves living on a Jersey shore type situation. Are York and Old Orchard Beach are like that?

4) Do towns that limit Airbnb rentals? Don't want wild parties next door.

5) Price less than $500,000 and near to the beach.

We really like Peaks Island, but the lots are small. Camden seems nice. Bar Harbor seems like it would be cold and dark in winter. Harpswell seems nice, but does anyone stay over the winter?

We thought about Cape May, NJ (isolated and far from Amtrak/airports), Cape Cod (crowded and expensive), and Maine.

Any ideas?

[jdhpa]

Amtrak runs up the coast (more or less) to Brunswick, so if Amtrak is important you may want to go no further north than there.

For retirement, you may want to make sure you're close to a trauma center. Having to travel for appointments is a nuisance, but if you need a trauma center and it isn't nearby, that's a real problem.

Maine*Hospitals | Kling Report
https://www.facs.org/search/trauma-centers?state=ME

Good luck! Maine is beautiful, and has the friendliest people I've ever met.

[YorktownGal]

Originally Posted by jdhpa

Amtrak runs up the coast (more or less) to Brunswick, so if Amtrak is important you may want to go no further north than there.

For retirement, you may want to make sure you're close to a trauma center. Having to travel for appointments is a nuisance, but if you need a trauma center and it isn't nearby, that's a real problem.

Maine*Hospitals | Kling Report
https://www.facs.org/search/trauma-centers?state=ME

Good luck! Maine is beautiful, and has the friendliest people I've ever met.

Thanks!

There is a trauma center is Lewiston. It's about 30 minutes away from Amtrak's Brunswick station. Yeah! Another town to look at!

We were really impressed by Maine's friendliness while on vacation - a year ago in the pre-pandemic time.

[SulfurDog]

Hey Yorktown Girl,
I'm actually from Yonkers....spent 20 years living in Yorktown until we moved here close to 2 years ago. We also looked into Cape Cod (actually house hunted more there than in Maine but the congestion and prices really tipped us towards the Midcoast area.. We vacationed here 6 years ago and loved it. ( Cape May was also on our list. We would vacation with friends in Cape May for years, but found the surrounding areas didn't really offer enough to keep us interested in the area as a whole, plus it's just too pricey)

We landed just outside of Rockland, in South Thomaston, and it's been a great move for us---trading 13,000 dollar/year property taxes for a waterfront home on the river for less than a third the tax cost. We live a couple of miles from a small airport that take you into Boston. It makes the airport from "Wings" look like JFK. If you liked Camden, we're a short drive south---maybe 20 minutes. Beaches surround us everywhere, but not the sandy beaches you're used to back home. You'd have to go south of us for that.

Rockland is most definitely a year-round community with a vibrant main street that isn't a t-shirt tourist mecca. It's known for a growing arts scene (some of the locals aren't thrilled with that) and a great mom and pop foodie scene. Theye're not big on chain fast food up here---An Applebee's, KFC and Pizza Hut come to mind. You won't see a CVS north of Brunswick---Walgreens and Walmart are the main drug stores up here

Nice supermarket in Hannaford's. Very nice. There is also a Shaw's and some local meat and fish shops. You'll be having fish alot more often up here.

Penbay is the nearest medical here and and some folks with very serious issues make the hour and a half drive to Portland and I know folks who use medical services in Scarborough as well. Bangor is an hour and a half north and Belfast is a terrific town less than an hour up from here as well.

This area has everything you need, unless you realllly love big box shopping. There is no Route 6 equivalent in this area. Route 90 and 1 are the main commercial establishments up here and are akin to Central Avenue circa 1970. Most folks who need to drive to Augusta for more intense shopping.(locals call it Disgusta. I've only been there twice, such is my need for extensive stores and now with this pandemic situation most of us are online shopping anyway.


Please don't hesitate to ask further questions. I think the nicest surprise for us was how welcoming everyone has been. I know more folks here (and like them!) then I ever knew in Yorktown. The other shocker is that I actually ENJOY going to Walmart---yes I said that. And the Home Depot up here---ha. You could drive to it on a Saturday afternoon at 1 PM and have no issues with crowds. The Lowes is much the same.

My husband thought it would be too cold up here but along the coast, you're seeing a huge difference in the weather. Most folks back home assume we get a worse version of whatever snow they are dealing with, not realizing that it often sweeps out to sea before we ever get anything.

Love Maine. Love it.

[YorktownGal]

Originally Posted by SulfurDog

We landed just outside of Rockland, in South Thomaston, and it's been a great move for us---trading 13,000 dollar/year property taxes for a waterfront home on the river for less than a third the tax cost. We live a couple of miles from a small airport that take you into Boston. It makes the airport from "Wings" look like JFK. If you liked Camden, we're a short drive south---maybe 20 minutes. Beaches surround us everywhere, but not the sandy beaches you're used to back home. You'd have to go south of us for that.


This area has everything you need, unless you realllly love big box shopping. There is no Route 6 equivalent in this area. Route 90 and 1 are the main commercial establishments up here and are akin to Central Avenue circa 1970. Most folks who need to drive to Augusta for more intense shopping.(locals call it Disgusta. I've only been there twice, such is my need for extensive stores and now with this pandemic situation most of us are online shopping anyway.


Please don't hesitate to ask further questions. I think the nicest surprise for us was how welcoming everyone has been. I know more folks here (and like them!) then I ever knew in Yorktown. The other shocker is that I actually ENJOY going to Walmart---yes I said that. And the Home Depot up here---ha. You could drive to it on a Saturday afternoon at 1 PM and have no issues with crowds. The Lowes is much the same.

My husband thought it would be too cold up here but along the coast, you're seeing a huge difference in the weather. Most folks back home assume we get a worse version of whatever snow they are dealing with, not realizing that it often sweeps out to sea before we ever get anything.

Love Maine. Love it.

Thanks so much for your reply!

Route 6 from Somers to Peekskill has been so overbuilt. Really, a four story apartment complex in Somers? Townhouses popping up everywhere. The area is changing into more a like city everyday. My kids are out of school so my property taxes are paying for garbage pickup twice a week. Pretty expensive garbage pickup.

Once Maine opens up, we are going to look around! I can't wait!

[yaeger07]

My in-laws live in Harpswell. There's a pretty robust year round community, I think.

[YorktownGal]

Originally Posted by yaeger07

My in-laws live in Harpswell. There's a pretty robust year round community, I think.

I've look at it online and it looks heavenly!

Thanks!

[SulfurDog]

We just saw an independent flick filmed in Harpswell called "Blow the Man Down".

[ben young]

I used to dive for sea scallops off Harpswell in February .The air was 27degrees and the water 29degrees..Good times.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by YorktownGal

NYC has changed in the last decade. The pandemic lockdown has not helped. I'm paying too much to live where I can't leave my house.
My house is in Westchester, NY where houses are closing within seven days being listed. New Yorkers are fleeing the city for the suburbs. Many suburban New Yorkers want to be even further away form NYC.


My husband can work from anywhere for the next couple of years before retirement.

1) We would like to be close to Amtrak or an airport.

2) We would like a walkable town.

3) We would like a quiet town with - for the most part - year round residents. We don't want to find ourselves living on a Jersey shore type situation. Are York and Old Orchard Beach are like that?

4) Do towns that limit Airbnb rentals? Don't want wild parties next door.

5) Price less than $500,000 and near to the beach.

We really like Peaks Island, but the lots are small. Camden seems nice. Bar Harbor seems like it would be cold and dark in winter. Harpswell seems nice, but does anyone stay over the winter?

We thought about Cape May, NJ (isolated and far from Amtrak/airports), Cape Cod (crowded and expensive), and Maine.

Any ideas?

Brunswick hits all your buttons. Although I should point out that Maine doesn't have a lot of "beach," if you mean sandy beaches. Old Orchard Beach, York, and Kennebunkport, and Oguinquit are south of Portland and very, very, very crowded. Farther north you have Popham Beach and Reid State park, both within 30 minutes of Brunswick, both very nice.

Camden and Bar Harbor are nice. Neither have an Amtrak station, and the nearest major airport is Bangor.

Harpswell is nice. There are year-round residents, but there are also A LOT of summer people --- tourists, Bowdoin faculty, etc. My wife's friend lives on a street with five houses. They are the only year-round residents.