Vermont Home Prices ‘In A State Of Flux’
The Times Argus has this update on Vermont. “After five years of record climbs, Vermont’s housing market appears to be leveling off. Properties are starting to spend more time on the market, for one thing.”
“The additional housing stock has allowed buyers to be a little choosier, according to Kathleen Sweeten, executive VP of the Vermont Real Estate Information Network. ‘What a difference a year can make. Buyers don’t have to rush in and make an offer now. They can be more selective.’ Her opinion was borne out in conversations with Realtors around the state.”
“Realtor Jim Watson said the impact of the additional housing stock is easy to see in Rutland, where the average time for a home to sell last year was 90 days. Now, a home spends an average of 150 days on the market, he said. ‘For every buyer, we now have more inventory sitting in that price range,’ he said.”
“That change has helped shift the balance of power away from sellers who have had all the advantage in recent years. ‘It’s more of a neutral market,’ he said. ‘It was a seller’s market until last July, but it was crazy, it couldn’t be sustained. The change came in July; all of a sudden, we knew what the value of properties was again.’”
“Pricing properties has been an imprecise science for Watson and other real estate agents, because sellers have been able to name their price for years now. Now, some sellers are having a hard time giving up their high expectations, some agents said.”
“‘People have a very inflated idea of what their properties are worth now because everything has been so high-priced the last few years,’ said (broker) Carol Ellison in Barre. ‘I’ve done assessments recently where people have seen ads of what other people are asking and they expect a lot more,’ she said. ‘But a lot of the people who are asking more are the ones whose property is just sitting on the market now.’”
“She said, ‘The market has been so inflated that now that it’s stabilizing, it’s difficult to price property. I’ve never had a more difficult time pricing property. Call me in July. Right now, it’s in a state of flux.’”
I just found this the boomers will all move to florida, so the sales in every other should be just fine, THE BOOMERS ARE COMMING !!!
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060101/NEWS0106/601010395/1001/ARCHIVES
““The additional housing stock has allowed buyers to be a little choosier, according to Kathleen Sweeten, executive VP of the Vermont Real Estate Information Network. ‘What a difference a year can make. Buyers don’t have to rush in and make an offer now. They can be more selective.’”
Or you can lowball!
David
http://bubblemeter.blogspot.com
‘The change came in July; all of a sudden, we knew what the value of properties was again.’
How could talk like this not spook potential buyers? And how can an appraiser assign value in a ’state of flux’?
Isn’t Lingus from Vermont?
Where is Lingus? I believe the Barron’s article intimated that people were looking for serene spots with great views. Vermont sounds like the place.
Elvis sez: I was always on your mind…………… I was always on your mind.
lingus - have the “Massholes and NJ/CT/NYC scum” started to fold yet?
Good One!
Yes. Vermont is a subarctic paradise and crucial summer range for the temple-boring blackfly. Enjoy the lyrical, snowy woods by yourself during the next brain freeze warning. Serenely watch wolves in the wild. Tie up your dog outside and listen for the sounds of wild nature.
This is a Public Service Announcement
I love Vermont. Absolutely beautiful as I recall. Has it really been ruined by second house owners?
“Ruined” would be a gross overstatement and would depend on one’s perspective. For some native Vermonters, ruined means running into rude loud New Yorkers at the supermarket. Or being tailgated by a monster SUV driven by impatient Jerseyites. Of course the Jerseyite’s perspective is that the Vermont codger in front of him who is driving 5 mph under the speed limit, except on straightaways where he speeds up and you can’t pass is a complete cretin whose car should be nuked if only possible.
And how can an appraiser assign value in a ’state of flux’?
He simply punches the number the starving mortgage broker tells him to put down if he wants any work scraps.
The L/O’s won’t take any chance of screwin’ up a deal today with the use of someone checkin’ the declining value box, meanin’ FNMA won’t buy the loan.
Crooked appraisers are more in the driver’s seat than they’ve ever been with the fall-off in refi activity.
All still just a game of continuing racketeering lies and deceptions.
The fraud involved in the loan and finance industry is a pandemic, and it’s not just real estate. My brother has a small RV dealership and gets all kinds of junk financed for his customers. The broker that he uses for consumer financing writes the loan paper as a 1997 trailer when it’s actually a 1987. This is just how business is done today.
Have you guys noticed all the infomercials lately? Maybe it was because I couldn’t find anything and I was clicking the channels, but geesh… they are full steam ahead. So many quick rich schemes and when you research them on the web, they’re mostly scams.
Most don’t research these, just like they don’t read their mortgage contract, just like they don’t study the real estate market in their area before they buy. I don’t blame them for wanting to have financial wealth but damn, what happened to logic? What happened to research before you buy. I’ll bet people research a vacuum’s performance before they buy more often than a house.
Have noticed there are lots of them hawking RE. They all look like carnival barkers.
I was wondering what Erik Estrada was doing with himself after Sealab 2021 went off the air…
Gee, Melody - you mean you don’t want to earn $10,000 part time working from your home?!!!!!
They should outlaw a lot of those infomericals as pyramid schemes/complete scams. It amazes me what gets “past” the FCC….
did you see any exposed breast? if not, fcc could care less.
It’s all about a pair of midget twins.
“Most don’t research these, just like they don’t read their mortgage contract, just like they don’t study the real estate market in their area before they buy.”
But, but…SUZANNE has researched this!
LOL - that is the problem!!!
Even the good ole days - when house would take 90 days instead of the 150 they do know - show how illiquid RE is as an investment and how important uit is to be selling as prices rise.
Back in 04 05 I was trying to convince friends and family to sell and if they still absolutely had to be in real estae then put their money in a REIT, real estate mutual fund, or home builder stock that they could get out of in an instant.
The credit spigot was shut off (thank you BB) and now the NJ/NYC/CT slimers and MasssHoles are paying on 2 notes…… when push comes to shove, guess which one they’ll unload when the time comes…..
Don’t forget the impact of high/rising gas costs to drive all those “SLOBurbans” “TaWhores, and Excretions”. Looks like your Maple Syrup farm may be safe.
Made my day Lingus!
I hope you are right. I have tried to figure out where this bubble is going for secondary (rolling boom markets). Some, like Fresno, Turdlock, and Excremento in Cal, Phoenix, AZ, and Las Vegas, NV are probably going to tank quickly. But I don’t know what to predict for somewhat more desirable areas like Maine and Vermont, N. AZ (except for that horribly cold weather), and the Pacific Northwest that are close to bubble areas. These places are magnets for retiring boomers and equity bandits. I am guessing (hoping) that the second homers will be feeling increasing testicular pressure from the vice called rising rates, encouraging them to slither back into the urban swamps whence they came. But perhaps they will want to stay, and we will be hosed forever and ever amen.
Anyone else have any ideas on this issue?
I think they will stay where their income is (cities, not rural) - unless they have a choice WAH arrangement and can live anywhere.
I think they will dump the places they purchased either for vacation or to flip and keep their first home (note: this does not apply to the bimbo with 14 properties).
If they were subprimes and lose their only home, as noted in previous posts they will be lucky to go back to renting. Their creditworthiness will be in the crapper.
Comment by M.B.A.
2006-05-29 15:12:39
I think they will stay where their income is (cities, not rural) - unless they have a choice WAH arrangement and can live anywhere.
I think they will dump the places they purchased either for vacation or to flip and keep their first home (note: this does not apply to the bimbo with 14 properties).
If they were subprimes and lose their only home, as noted in previous posts they will be lucky to go back to renting. Their creditworthiness will be in the crapper.
______________________________________________________
Exactly…. They will return to what is familiar.
The Socialist Republic of Maine is currently ranked 1st in accumulative taxation relative to income, while running 38th in per capita income.
It has become a haven (1st in NE) for opiate addicts because the liberal welfare system will virturally guarantee you decent food, clothing, shelter, clothing, and a college degree if you are female with illegitimate children. So the men take up with some woman entrenched in the system soaking up benefits and shoot their junk.
So much is spent on social services, the infrastructare is crumbling. With a 1.2 mil pop and declining, there are not enough productive citizens to tax to keep it all up to snuff.
For comparison, the state is 4x the size of MA with an eighth of the populace
The best and brightest children leave because there are no reasonably paying jobs for them after the completion of college. Many white collars have been downsized out, with the collapse of the paper industry and light mfg. sector and once you lose that $50k job-there’s not a whole lot waiting in the wings-so the productive leave.
Nearly every household is dependant by one spouse employed by the government. If these parasitic paychecks were eliminated back the entire state would collapse. Wait until all these pensions come due…whoooweee!!!!!!!!!!
Because they’ve been beaten down so long, with crap jobs and a rapidly falling standard of living the locals hate sucess, and will do everything in their power to thwart development or entreupreneurship, simply out of spite and jealousy.
At the moment the largest industry is now tourism, with it’s associated minimum wage levels. There are an overabundance of hospitals which has placed enormous strains on the the provision of affordable healthcare by employers. So many are packing it in and heading for greener pastures.
2nd largest industry is healthcare, providing for the legions of indigent elderly and welfare crowd. Interesting to have an economy supported by a major industry providing a service nobody can pay for.
Business has always been vilified, scapegoated and used as a whipping boy by the DEMO controlled executive and legistlative bodies, so their exodus is long past due.
As a warning to those who think they will escape by retiring here-the state is in virtual desperation mode relative to finding an entity to tax. I see a very similar situation as exists in FL, whereby wealthy retiree seasonal home owners will be subject to substantial luxury, consumption, and passive income taxes. Ain’t no other way to get the dough…
Beware!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Portland is pretty much booming though. For example IDEXX Labs recently announced it is hiring 500 people and these will mainly be well paying positions. Some other companies which hire/employ a lot of people are National Semiconductor, Fairchild Semiconductor, Unum-Provident, MBNA, Seligman, TD BankNorth, Binax, Wright Express, Delorme, Tylet Technologies, Tom’s of Maine and of course L.L. Bean.
There really are two Maines, the prosperous south and the poor but beautiful north. I agree the welfare is out of control, but I’d say less severe than places like NYC.
In Portland, the atmosphere is very entrepreneurial, and there are many small businesses sprouting up. Much of these are single person consultancies operated out of Maine, but with clients concentrated in Boston and New York. Lots of people who spend one day a week in Boston two hours away.
While many in the poor north have small incomes, they get by. Many work odd jobs and stretch their incomes via growing their own food, canning it, fishing, hunting, berrying, picking fiddleheads, etc. So while the bank accounts are small, they are rich in other ways.
The Loretta Lynn song “High on a Mountaintop”, although set somewhere in southern Appalachia, sort of somes up how it is for many in Maine:
High on a mountain top
We live, we love, and we laugh a lot
Folks up here know what they got
High on a mountain top.
Waiting2P-
Stopped into LL Bean to pick up a pair of Keen sandels on Sunday morning. The guy who waited on me said biz had been dead since December. Noticeable empty storefronts thruout Freeport.
MBNA has been bought by BofA. All those jobs will head to NC as soon as HR gets their shit together.
Peoples Heritage Bank has been bought by Canadians.
Why are they gonna pay the health care costs for the processor drones in Lewiston, when they can get it for free in the home country?
If Portland’s so hot-why all the FOR Lease signs in the Old Port?
Yes, that is why I left. There was nothing for me after college, and when I wanted to move back years later I would have taken at least a 40% pay cut (even in Portland) and my expenses would have gone up about 30%. It was a no brainer.
Also the state is so big and has to maintain a huge system of roads - quite expensive a task with only 1.2Mil people.
And you are right, business is thwarted in ridiculously stupid ways, and everyone is very concerned about ’sprawl’. It would benefit them if they started figuring out how to grow smartly. Good urban planning allows you to expand with less cost because you are creating infrastructure for supporting the populace. Allowing people to own large chunks of land, spreading themselves out over a wide area (in any state) is far more expensive for cities and states when they have to build the electrical, water, sewer, etc. to maintain the area.
Just flying over Maine all you see are mostly Pine trees anyway. I’ve decided the state is very schizophrenic. It wants to grow and be less costly to live there… it wants to hang on to the younger people who leave in droves, but it has no will to do so. Like every rural area which enjoys the less hectic pace of its urban neighbors, it wants the best of what it’s urban cousins have to offer at a reasonable cost of living without losing its soul.
Right now it is losing that battle.
I actually think all of New England is losing that battle, not just Maine
just hope that the US will be different from Europe …
I’m in a ’secondary market’ in the Netherlands, a bit of a cross between Arizona (rural, low wages; most of the good jobs are with the government) and Florida (seaside, tourism and lately rich pensioners). The housing bubble here is far worse than in the original housing boom areas with probably double the price increase (8-10x increase instead of 4-6x).
Many of the rich parasites that came from the big cities will stay here even if the bubble explodes because they got so rich from selling their uptown homes (plus speculating in local real estate) that they never have to work again. Most of them retired early (around 50-55) on superfat state pension plans anyway and although they are a relatively small group they have a huge influence on local politics. I don’t think we will ever get rid of them, except maybe for some luxury condo towers near the sea that are mostly vacant now anyway.
P.S.: we don’t have blackflies here but we do have loads of infected ticks. Doesn’t help either; probably the parasites don’t come out of their SUV’s enough to get bitten.
nhz,
Your post was eerie. To think that the Netherlands has exactly the same problem as here. Namely, that piece of shit exurban real estate speculators can make millions screwing up their city, retire early to your town, move in, an immediately begin pushing people around. We have the same issue here in Southern Oregon with San Francisco snobs who move here and never stop pining over the culture of “The City”, and assuming they should be in charge, despite knowing next to nothing about the economy or culture of the region. Amazing parallels considering how far we are apart geographically. I hope your situation improves there.
Which one will the Mass exodus dump? The one with the equity and that ain’t the one they bought in VT in 2004. Be careful what you wish for. One bad wintah and those Lexus liberals will be registered votahs and screaming at the town council to fix the roads, schools and do something about the riff-raff and weather.
Good point. It probably depends upon whether they are really retired and no longer need a day job. Alas, many of the California boomers have so much equity they do not seem to need jobs…might be the same up in Blackflyland….sigh
In NS, they call those suckers “noseeums” and that’s a good name cause you can’t see them but they bite the hell out of you!
I’ll put our “Greenheads” up against any bug comer bite for bite. You can see ‘um. You can hit them if you’re quick. But they get right back up. They leave a red welt the size of a penci’s eraser.
Actually, noseeums (aka “midges”) are a different insect than the black fly. I believe the black fly is the state bird in all northern New England states, at least in late May and June.
Up in Vermont you can tell the difference between the blackfies and greenheads by the registration numbers on the fuselage back near the tail section.
Spent some summers on the Gaspe penninsula of Canada. Speaking of biting flies!
CT does not have really bad biting flies…now the mosquitoes and the ticks are a different matter
And the WASPs!
Will the same logic apply to CA -> AZ situation? In other words, are we going to expect more selling in CA to cover the losses in AZ?
What’s the point of selling the high equity assets to cover the still increasing gaps of the low equity assets? If I was a speculator, I’d just go BK and seal my ass in relative comfort.
“Which one will the Mass exodus dump? The one with the equity and that ain’t the one they bought in VT in 2004.”
Thats merely conjecture. The 2nd house could have been bought and paid for with HELOC cash.
Of course it’s conjecture. I’m not going to waste time on a subject that you won’t even begin to look at with an open mind. You’ve made up your mind and I’m not interested in trying to change it. I mean, if the last time settlement patterns were brought up and you didn’t believe 80 years of census data I pretty much figured you wouldn’t believe this time either.
Got news for ya though, all you are seeing is the leading edge of the boomers and a whole lot more of the slightly older people raised in either depression or world war. If they bought in VT it sure as hell wasn’t with some fancy new fangled exotic leverage financial instrument.
Why are you wasting your time if you’re not gonna waste your time?
They have been known to move into Maine coastal towns and then try to pass noise ordinances when the fishermen and lobstermen are starting their day at 4AM.
yeah, same here in the Netherlands. They build a luxury residence in the country and then start complaining that the farmers start their tractors before 8.00 (actually between 4 and 5 hours I guess) or that there is some strange smell in the corner of their property.
Some clever cities (follow the money …) have changed the regulations for the countryside now so that farming gets nearly impossible and that helps to attract even more city parasites.
ROFL! My folks in upstate NY heard of similar problems, where farmland is turning into housing (and folks will even drive 2.5-3hrs to NYC from up there!).. There’s apparently some sort of covenant in their town which prevents residents from suing for “odd smells” during fertilizer season, which came from (you guessed it) some weekender suing the town, the farmers, the RE agent for the odd odors that wafted past their little cottage…
Like the Falmouth, Ma (Cape Cod) pig farm. Not sure why the town doesn’t blow off the newcomers if the farm was there first. Don’t want to scare off the “rich” tourists, ya know.
I have been meaning to ask you, what is a hairy Mary.
A fat Italian woman from Brooklyn who has a moustache. This is a stretch but if you can remember the woman who played Michael J. Fox’s secretary in “The Secret of My Success”. She also needs one of those awful low-class NY accents.
That’s a Hairy Marie.
Thanks, I am saddened that they may really be in Vermont. By the way, do you still have that almost zero % body fat?
4% and holding. Thank heavens for hot weather
You are the best!
More like Ricky’s mom from ‘Better Off Dead’..
nah, the credit spigot has not been shut off. it is being check for leaks.
Vermont has much to offer- peace, solitude, nice small towns and small cities- but are prices justified? NO. Is it different here? NO
Vermont has no good paying jobs, and its main attraction is for burned out denizons from NYC, DC, Boston and even AZ and California (the latter 2 locales may have to adjust to the winters)-albeit milder due to global warming. A nice state- but RE is overpriced and due for a correction.
Comment by Peter
2006-05-29 12:36:47
Vermont has much to offer- peace, solitude, nice small towns and small cities-
________________________________________________________
And where in VT would that be? Maybe going back 10 years ago but not anymore. Much of the attributes the NJ/CT/NYC scummers move here for is nothing but a memory of a bygone era. The traffic is atrocious, the local economy is based on selling non-incoming producing junk (branded “Vermont… HA!!) and the property taxes continue to explode.
I recall that Vermont had the highest suicide rate some time ago. Not sure if it is still true now. I do know that there is a town or two that would like to seccede to New Hampshire. I also know that residents of Maine, Mass and Vermont like to ship in NH.
I thought it was Seattle due to all the rain and tortured-soul grunge music.
At least you can go out in the rain. Driving around on freezing rain can be hazardous to your health.
“The demographic pressure is strong enough that we don’t see the market declining much through 2010,” he added”.
There is no question in my mind that over the long term, beautiful places like Vermont will continue to fill up with refugees from places like NYC. Think about it - you have just spent a 35 year career in the rat race taking the commuter rail into Manhattan an hour each way and the best times were always that week or two a year that you got away to Vermont or the shore. Your kids are now out of school, you’re 55, you have a million dollars in your 401K rollovers and you know it’s only a matter of time before the corporation you work for throws you out the door. The house you live in which you bought for $75,000 in Westchester County in 1978 is now worth a million and a half. Social security is a few years off.
Then one day you get called down to HR are your job is toast. So you look at the million in retirement and the $1.5 million in home equity and you realize you have a lot of money - but not if you stay in the tri-sate area. Taxes alone are costing you $20,000 a year.
So you drive to Burlington and realize you can get a nice condo with views across Lake Champlain to the Adirondacks for $500,000. You’d be in this incredibly beautiful town on maybe the nicest lake in the U.S. and yet the place is very sophisticated due to the University and all the in-migrants. And as they say, the best thing about Burlington is it’s right next to Vermont.
You make note of the fact there are several ski areas within half an hour and if you move here you’ll see the kids, who all ski, more often than you do now. You can buy the place cash and have $2 million left. You worry a bit about the winter but then realize that even if the $2 million throws off only 5% a year which is $100,000, so you know you can always get away to Tucson for a month every February.
You think about all of this and you compare it with staying in Scarsdale, waiting for your taxes to hit $30,000 one day and realizing half your friends have already split NY. In fact, you realize that during those years in the rat race, you don’t even have that many good friends who you see regularly any more. You then realize that Vermont is only an hour from LaGuardia and you’ll see as many of your friends and family up in Burlington as you do now. You’re in middle age and you like the fact that Burlington has hospitals. You like the fact that you can get back to NY to visit a museum or see the Yankees.
One day you make the move and soon after wonder why you never did it earlier. You’ve actually found some consulting work and with you broadband connection and wireless, you’re making about $50,000 a year on a small handful of projects. You start to realize that Burlington is in fact a hotbed of telecommutation and you see more and more NYers come in every year. Lot’s of entrepreneurs working remotely.
Yes, the black flies are nasty on those days in June when it’s not windy or raining, but you realize it’s only June. And yes the worst thing about winter is the driving. But you quickly learn to wait a couple hours for the plows to plow, sand and salt.
You now take every opportunity you can to tell everyone you know how great a move this is.
You have not just read about the demographic pressure. You are the demographic pressure.
You see prices settle down and maybe retreat. But you know it’s just temporary as there are a lot more of you.
Simply said, NY’s ceiling is Vermont’s floor. What will hurt NYC prices will help Vermont’s. Of course you don’t care. You’ve reached the place where you know you’ll never sell.
I am now totally depressed.
You make it sound like Vermont is the primary place a retired New Yorker will go to. Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, southern states. Florida may also crash right in time, making it again affordable. There are plenty of places to choose from. Not to mention that a bunch of retirees go to to Mexico or Costa Rica.
Comment by Max
2006-05-29 14:31:30
You make it sound like Vermont is the primary place a retired New Yorker will go to. Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, southern states. Florida may also crash right in time, making it again affordable. There are plenty of places to choose from. Not to mention that a bunch of retirees go to to Mexico or Costa Rica.
_____________________________________________________
Very well put. Most of the NYC/NJ/CT slimeballs aren’t retirees; rather DINK’s looking for a hedonistic getaway. They most definitely sell out once the thrill is gone and realize that the winters are too oppressive.
Reminds me of the Russian Winter that helped defeat both the French and German invaders in two different wars.
When New York sneezes everyone gets pneummonia. In other words, NY is so big that an exodus from NY can prop up a number of tiny areas, Vermont being just one of them. All the other places you mention can benefit from a shrinking NY. Vermont is simply very familiar to NY because of its relative proximity to NYC (e.g., 189 miles from NYC to Bennington) and the explosion of ski areas back in the 60’s. If I had to pick one thing that opened Vermont up to NYers, it would be skiing.
To find the Vermont of yesteryear, one can go to Maine — northern Maine.
From yesterday’s Portland Press Herald —
Partial List of some great things about Maine:
- The Cat
- Jet Blue
- The Downeaster
- The Maine Turnpike
- Prouts Neck
- Bowdoin, Bates & Colby
- World class X-C ski facility at Pineland
- The incredible old homes of Paris Hill
- Fore Street Restaurant
- Grafton Notch State Park
- The water taxies and ferries of Casco Bay
- The Scarborough Marsh
- friendly toll booth attendants you actually get to know
- The Western Prom
- Seeing Mt. Washington and seals simultaneously from Ferry Beach
- Crafts fairs in the fall
- The Penobscot River
- The balance of urban sophistication and the great outdoors in Portland
- the lobster rolls at Gilbert’s Chowder House
- Five Islands Lobster Company
- Being able to have broadband in some pretty remote places
- All the great painters, sculptors, woodcarvers and potters
- Seeing bald eagles
- The Hermitage and Big Reed stands of giant old growth white pine trees
- Sea run salmon returning to the rivers as dams are torn down
- The Spring Running Festival
- Free concerts at LL Bean
- Merrill Auditorium
- Summit Farm B&B in Stacyville and its absolutely breathtaking view of Katahdin
- the white sandy public beaches at Sebago
- the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail
- Bigelow Mountain
- Great Wass Island
- The Cutler Coast trail
- Full moon sparkling on the snow amidst the long shadows of the trees
- The Rangeley Lakes
- The patriotic colors of the Blueberry barrens downeast turned red in the fall, white in the winter and blue in the summer
- Big and Little Niagra Falls in Baxter Park
- The banana cream pies at Dysart’s truck stop
- Portland Museum of Art
- The affordability of admission and food at Portland Seadogs games
- The Marginal Way at Ogunquit
- The Freyeburg Fair
- Picking wild berries
- The Chain of Ponds
- Farmer’s markets
- Fall apple picking
- Snowshoeing
- The size of the tides downeast
- Watching the kids enjoy the good life
- Trees encrusted with new fallen snow
- Giant mossy boulders in Crockett Cove Woods on Deer Isle
- The many views of Mt. Washington from southern Maine
- Stone walls
- Great sushi restaurants in Portland
- The northern lights
- The amazing new North Light Gallery in Millinocket
- Campfires
- The deafening chorus of peeper frogs in the spring
- Canoeing
- The Kennebunk Plains
- Groceria Cafe above Pat’s Meat Market on Stevens Avenue in Portland
- Shopping in the Old Port and Freeport
- The likely return of wolves and cougars
- Beaver lodges
- Portland’s natural foods stores
- 30,000 moose
- 22,000 black bear
- Apple blossom time in June
- The hunting and fishing traditions
- Cool nights for sleeping
- The civility of the people
- Woodsmoke and frost
- The incredible abundance of clean fresh water compared to most places on earth
- Good sushi at the supermarket
- Slate’s Restaurant in Hallowell
- Walking out to islands on the lakes in winter
- Norm’s BBQ in Portland
- The lack of pretentiousness, the “AntiHamptons”
- The amazingly friendly people of Fort Kent
- The budding creative economy
- Harbor Fish Market in Portland
- The Yarmouth Clam Festival
- The Horn of Plenty Restaurant in Island Falls
- Local custom furniture makers
- Pink granite
- People who grow, forage and hunt their own food
- Carter’s XC Ski Center in Bethel
- The Caribou Mountain National Wilderness Area
- Otters
- Royal River Natural Foods in Yarmouth
- Downhill ski areas
- Virtually no traffic in Portland even though Portlanders might think there is
- The abundance of municipal parking in Portland
- Sporting camps in the north woods
- Camping next to lakes
- Moose droppings and bear scat
- The way it looks around Christmas
- Camden Hills State Park
- Fiddleheads
- Chimney Pond
- L.L. Bean
- The to be built hut system in the western mountains
- Bethel
- The Belgrade Lakes
- All things blueberry
- Standard Baking Company in Portland
- The Maine Winter Sports Center and biathlon facilities in Fort Kent
- Katahdin from the east on route 11 in the early morning
- Katahdin from the east on route 11 at sunset right after a storm has cleared
- The Top of the East for civilized sunsets in Portland
- Picnicking on big flat sunny rocks in the middle of streams in the spring
- Waterfalls in the spring
- The amazing instructors at Portland Pilates
- Portland Trails
- Mountain Bike bliss
- Lobster and steamers
- The wonderment and mystery deriving from a virtually endless coastline and islands - where else possesses so much mystery?
- The beach after a blizzard
- The surf during storms
- The variety of the menu at The Great Lost Bear
- Gulf Hagas Gorge
- Meteor showers and the stars on clear nights
- The ocean beaches from Popham to Wells
- an active equestrian community
- all ages and incomes commingle, share Portland’s streets and venues
- The equestrian facilities at Pineland
- Puffins
- Woods along the highway that are not just along the highway
- The overpowering scent of balsam fir in the woods
- The low crime rate
- The amazing Kings of Bangor
- The often continuous change of scenery from fields to woods, to farms to homes of hundreds of styles
- the unbelievable number of people-strangers-who are willing to help if you are in trouble
- the low population density just outside all our major cities, the really low population density within an hour of anywhere
- We can leave the doors unlocked and our keys in the ignition
- Marcy’s Diner–anything you want for under $5.
- Portland is urban and offers so many cultural, theatrical, etc. experiences
but is bite-sized.
- uncrowded sidewalks that you don’t mistake for bumpercars
- world class summer camps
- parking meters that take nickels
- pedestrians rule the crosswalks
- Portland’s working waterfront and the promise of a world class marine science facility and aquarium
http://business.mainetoday.com/news/060528masstourism.shtml?com_full=1#begin
Hey - you can SEE the Nothern Lights there? Regularly? I did not know this…. can anyone confirm?
Nice list…too bad ambience and aesthetics don’t pay the bills.
Can’t we send the retired New Yorkers someplace more appropriate, like Chernobyl?
Applause, applause.
Thank you Robert. Thank you.
The cost of keeping a home:
I am Renting out 1 room (12×12 w/ Private Balcony) in a 3 bedroom, 2.5 Bath Townhome. The house and room are very clean and trendy. We are 1 male & 1 Female both in our late 20’s. I own the home and rent the other two rooms. The house has alot of really nice things so I am looking for a responsible person that will respect it.
Cost: 700 Plus Util.
I’m sure there is a lot of this going on. I do like my privacy. I guess that’s why I rent a house with just my husband.
you rent out rooms in your house? no way would i ever do that.
I don’t… I pulled the comment off craigslist. There are so many rooms for rent. Times are a changing.
got ya.
I rent out a spare bedroom too. Most people are recent graduates… new to Charlotte, settling in to their new job. They move out after 3-6 months and get their own apartment once they know the city and feel secure in their employment.
When I first got married we shared a 2 /2 apartment with my college roommate for 2 years. A 2 bdr apartment was only about $100 a month more than a 1 bdr. After 2 years the 7k we saved simply by splitting the 2br rent 3 ways instead of getting a 1bdr for ourselves allowed us to buy a townhouse while they were still cheap.