If you needed heart surgery, would you go to a part time cardiologist? It's the same way with listing real estate.

     The stakes are large. You need a full time broker at the helm, guiding the entire process. Not just the listing interview and front end paperwork.

     Real estate without a safety net...full time effort and trust in your skills to get the property on the market, noticed, sold. And all the other in between steps along the way to avoid the seller getting sued. To smooth the wrinkles out of the myriad of issues that can crop up. Problems, delays, derailments with the buyer, bank, attorneys leading up to the closing. It's nice to say you are a real estate agent, broker and passed the test. But that is only the ticket to the show you have not entered yet.

     But you can argue, the new agent needs to make his monthly over head at home. He needs those three other part time jobs to survive. True. But do you want an agent who is AWOL, a secret agent that vanishes...is just not in the loop? Especially in smaller rural markets where there is not a big machine to load the listing in one end, to come out pre-packaged at the other of the property conveyor belt. Especially when a buyer calls and really really wants to talk to the listing agent who had not been in the office or checked in for three weeks. Or is retired, kinda sorta for the third time, and off in the sunny south for the winter. He snagged the listing, never really intending to be on board to actually show and sell it.

Someone else can do it..but the seller thought you the agent, broker were the lead reindeer, the Rudolph always attached out front of the property sleigh.

The listing agent that knows the seller's plans, the configuration of the home inside and out. The only guy that has actually been to the property and wrote copy pertaining to the property, not a generic office gal created version that fits any property. Knows the lay of the land, waterfront acreage, hobby or working farm, corner grocery store, etc that made the phone ring in the first place. That started this whole production. And he is always available..not punching the time clock on this job and then on to another one...both that are not real estate related. No calls back in a few days if at all.

You don't want to wait in line if you are the buyer, the seller right? You don't have to when the full time agent, broker is working full out, 24/7 on your property sale or purchase.  Real estate is a jealous master. And like love, it wants all of you. And should be an olympic sport for the gold, silver, bronze..not a pick up game for fun. No one wants to take a number, have a seat and be put off. We live in America, land of drive thru everything and needed it not now, right now last time I checked.Maine, it's one big place and we're here to guide the process of getting real estate here, owning property here.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

Back in the fall when the federal tax credit for homebuyers was extended and expanded, the April 30th deadline seemed so far away.

If you look at your calendar today, you willl notice that April 30th, the last date for a signed purchase and sales agreement to be in place, is only 82 days away!

I will admit that Spring has started early this year with buyers taking advantage of the homebuyer tax credits. But, there a lot of buyers that are still procrastinating. In the real estate world 82 days is not a long time.

Don't miss out on this excetional opportunity to buy a home! With low prices, low rates and up to $8,000.00 in tax credits (for first time homebuyers and the up to $6,500.00 for previous homeowners), this is an ideal time to buy a home!

Help spread the word! Tell everyone you know about this excetional opportunity!

Let the WinterKids Passport take you away!

Here in Maine, when the temperatures drop and the winds blow and snow blankets the earth, there is some temptation for all of us to hibernate and surf the net, play video games or blow an afternoon in front of the tube. What we really should do is grab our Passports and go!

There is really no excuse for families not to experience all sorts of outdoor winter fun in Maine! Did you know that all 5^th, 6^th and 7^th graders in Maine can apply for a passport? No, not a passport that gains them access to far off lands, but a WinterKids Passport that gains them access to an entire season of outdoor winter recreation at area sledding parks, ski areas and ice arenas. Benefits of this passport include free or discounted skiing (cross country and downhill), snowshoeing, snowboarding, tubing and ice skating as well as discounted equipment rentals and lessons. Family members of WinterKids Passport holders also enjoy benefits. We all know the cardio benefits of dragging a sled back up the hill after an amazing downhill run!

The WinterKids Passport program is a non-profit organization committed to helping kids develop healthy habits through fun, outdoor winter activity. It is hoped that what they learn in childhood will carry through to adult life. The program is made possible through the generosity of numerous sponsors including Healthy Maine Partnerships (Maine gets high points for how we spend our anti-Tobacco dollars), TD Bank, Time Warner Cable (interesting after what I just said about the tube) and Hannaford Supermarkets (which does a great job promoting healthy eating habits). The program also receives major grant funding from the New Balance Foundation.

I grew up in Wisconsin hating the cold of winter, mostly because I insisted on dressing for style rather than warmth. But now, here in Maine where I am older and wiser, I find winter to be the most beautiful season. I find it impossible to sit indoors. I strap on snowshoes or cross country skiis (I am not a downhiller) and get out in it. Maybe I am no longer a fashionista, but I am warm. I wish I would have had a WinterKids Passport program while I was growing up - - I would have discovered my winter wonderland much sooner – right in my own backyard!

If you are thinking of buying or selling a home in the Mid-Coast Region of Maine, I am the Real Estate Professional in your backyard - Contact me Today.

Terry Driscoll, REALTOR - Mid-Coast Maine Residential Real Estate - 207/449-9696

Allen & Selig Realty . 15 Vine Street, Bath, ME 04530 . 207/443-2200

You get a call from a family out of state. There's been a death.

     The family needs some help, guidance from a local professional. What to do first, second and third in the process? 

    When a Maine real estate broker enters the old home on say the Jones Road or Alice Avenue,  you study the top to bottom of the place. And the walls, front of the refrigerator tell you a story. You "see" the person who lived here.

     As you measure and take images, shoot video you sense what the person was all about without actually meeting them in some cases. There is an mental "image" with the kids, grandkids, great grand kids that forms from the actual pictures taken over the years at this home.

You come in to an empty silent empty home. But suddenly begin to hear laughter, can picture the life events that happened here. It's like real estate CSI and the slide show of the family that owns the place begins to play thru a loop slowly. Actual images on the walls and refrigerator help guide you too. There is one from a Christmas in the late 1950's in black and white. Another from Thanksgiving in the 1960's. Or a family reunion behind the home on the open deck during a fourth of July with home made ice cream. Grammy's favorite like many older folks was grape nut. It was what they had to add to the plain  vanila ice cream churned and turned by hand on the open porch because they eat the grape nut each breakfast for cereal. This couple went thru the depression, a couple world wars or conflicts. Raised a family here.

      Family and the special place Grammy raised those kids in shines on, lives on, echos as you tour the place. Making sure to lock up and take it under your wing to worry about because no one else locally is here to take the job for family members.

As a Maine real estate broker, you help the family figure out who is buying the old car only used on Sunday drives to church. Lots of details to address. And no family here to do the job so the broker takes on the extra duties to help with the many small details the family is too far away to deal with.

     As you tour the Maine home, or lake cottage you make notes to use in marketing the place. And for suggestions to the family. There is some deferred maintenance that was not tended to. Or maybe forgotten about during long illnesses, or sickness with the husband before he passed away a few years back. Or money was not there to tend to the areas needing attention. You advise the family on what is worth doing for repairs. What is diminishing returns in a small rural Maine real estate market. No stager called in to redecorate. The place is priced at $34,500. Humble, simple, and affordable. It may be filled with a new young family or bought as a Maine vacation place. You can do that with a second home purchase when the price tags hanging on the property is this low cost and reasonable.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

"Life has been a blur and is picking up speed."

     And I have had many phone callers, emailers indicating worry about when it will all snap, come undone. And doubt the guy and gal on the other end can hold it together much longer. These are not folks that arenecessarily loosing their homes. Or that are upside down financially. But they are getting tired treading water, keeping their head above that water. Wondering out loud in calls and emails of why keep doing day to day where they live now if its not safe, expensive, no fun any longer.

     This segment reads from the same script. "Where I live now is not the neat little town it was eleven years ago when my husband and I landed here" is what one Pennsylvania buyer told me this past Saturday morning on the phone. Her husband is a hunter, and with more and more population, that sport is being infringed on. More rules, beefed up zoning, becoming a more expensive place to live. That is a common theme uttered by many considering Maine, as a low cost alternative with all the things they have lost but cherished where they live now in a growing population center. They want some place with friendlier people, less population and low or no crime.

    Concern from exasperated callers who worry about their kids and the large schools they attend. Schools with german shepherds roaming the halls, full time police officers but called "resource personnel" right in the schools. To protect the teachers. Try to control the student population or learn what they can from the inside about gangs, etc. That is not Houlton Maine which is in Aroostook County where crime statistics are half the state average of 4th lowest in the nation.

     We "lock" our front doors with high security bread and button knives, wedged in to keep the wind from blowing those doors open. Everyone has jumper cables in their vehicle and stop when a idle car is along the road side that might be needing help.

     We call the shut in older lady down the street to offer a ride to the grocery store. Or to just check in on her. We follow the local basket ball, hockey,football soccer, baseball, tennis teams around the circuit. We know our neighbors, like them, trust them.

Bean suppers where politicians in Washington DC could benefit if they sat down with a plateful of home made food. And just listened to good old, tried and tested common sense. The logic is real and in touch from the heart of down to earth, hard working tax payers.

     Are you like many of my callers, emailers that just are fed up with where you live now..mainly because of all these people surrounding you where you live now? You and I need to talk. Soon.

info@mooersrealty.com 207.532.6573.

     There are loose ends you need to square away where you live like get your place on the market, etc. We can help guide the process. Bring you up to speed on how much different this area is than what you are used to. Ready when you are. Shoot us an email, tap the numbers for a phone call to get the process started.

     I am Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, listing, marketing, selling real estate for 3 decades. I love where I live in Maine. Have raised four kids that turned out okay with their heads screwed on straight. Their feet on the ground. And I owe it to the village that helped raise them with old fashion "be kind to your neighbor / it's not about me but others" attitude. Is that what you are looking for, needing in your life if you are on a wild day to day high seas and looking for a safe harbor before you end up on the rocks?