Buying an Older Maine Home: Character, History and a Few Surprises

Walk into the right older Maine home and you'll notice something immediately.  It has character.  Wide pine floors. Built-ins. Old trim. A brick chimney. Maybe a farmhouse kitchen, attached barn, enclosed porch, or staircase that has been traveled by generations of families.  The floors may not be perfectly level.  The walls may not be perfectly square.  And somewhere along the way, someone probably added something to the house.  Then someone else added something to that addition.  That's part of the experience.

How Far From Town Is Too Far? Choosing the Right Level of Rural in Maine

You found the property.  Ten acres. A nice house. Big garage. Plenty of privacy. Maybe there's even a brook running through the back of the land. Then you pull up the map.  The grocery store is 25 minutes away. The nearest larger town is 40 minutes away. Your favorite [...]

That Old Stone Wall in the Woods: Reading the History of Maine Land

You're walking through a wooded Maine property when you notice something that doesn't seem to belong there: a stone wall running through mature forest, sometimes for hundreds of feet. There isn't a house nearby, no obvious field, and no immediate reason why someone would have spent countless hours moving rocks and carefully stacking them in a line through what is now the middle of the woods.

But there's a simple explanation. It probably wasn't always woods.

Buying a Maine Camp in Winter: What Can the Snow Be Hiding?

There's something special about looking at a Maine camp in winter. The lake is frozen. Snow covers the evergreens. The road winds through woods that look like a postcard. You step out of the truck, hear almost nothing, and start imagining snowmobile weekends, ice fishing, a wood [...]

Septic Systems in Maine: What Every Homeowner Should Understand

For most people, there's one feature of a house they don't spend much time thinking about.

You turn on the faucet.

Take a shower.

Run the dishwasher.

Flush the toilet.

And everything disappears.

If your home is connected to a municipal sewer system, that's pretty much where your involvement [...]

What Does “Right-of-Way” Mean on a Maine Property?

You're looking at a Maine property online and everything seems pretty straightforward.

Three-bedroom home.

Ten acres.

Detached garage.

Private well and septic.

Then somewhere in the listing, deed, or property information you see three words:

“Access by right-of-way.”

Or perhaps:

“Subject to a [...]

Why Local Knowledge Still Matters in the Age of Zillow

Buying real estate has changed dramatically.

Not that long ago, buyers depended almost entirely on real estate agents to tell them what properties were available. Today, you can sit on your couch at 10:30 at night and search hundreds of homes, camps, waterfront properties, and parcels [...]

Mud Season: The Fifth Season Every Maine Property Owner Should Understand

Maine has four seasons.

At least that's what the calendar says.

Anyone who has spent enough time here knows there's another one squeezed somewhere between winter and spring.

Mud season.

It's that wonderful time of year when you can leave the house wearing a [...]

Waterfront Doesn’t Always Mean Buildable: What Maine Buyers Need to Know

You find it online late one evening.

Three acres.

Beautiful wooded lot.

One hundred feet of waterfront.

The price seems surprisingly affordable.

You immediately start imagining a small camp overlooking the water, a dock, a firepit, kayaks along the shoreline, and [...]

You Found 20 Acres in Maine. Now What?

Twenty acres.

For someone accustomed to looking at quarter-acre house lots, that can sound enormous.

You start imagining a house set back from the road, a big garage, trails through the woods, a garden, maybe a small farm, hunting out the back door, and enough room that seeing your neighbors becomes [...]