After a Maine winter, part of the renewal process of spring is planning to be in your local canoe race.

Some trips down the local waterway are done by black belt kayakers pushing to beat their time of last season. Others a leisurely drift following the current with boatful of family glad to celebrate the annual tradition. In Houlton Maine, the Meduxnekeag River Canoe Race was started by Ricker College, taken over and guided for many years by the Houlton Rotary Club and in more recent years, the tradition kept alive by Peter Blood and Clint Cushman, two local high school teachers. Todd Willard and Malcolm Nesbitt have taken over the reins for most of the race details now. I called Peter the other day to find out the date for this year's event and his cell found him in Florida enjoying retirement. May 2nd the magic date to circle on the calendar this year. 

Have you ever been in a Maine canoe race? Class five rapids and rocks that pin you under and smash your neighbor's canoe may be the slide show now playing in your head. But consider there are over 3000 rivers, streams in Maine and that there is an event, a venue for anyone to enjoy. Many of these waterways in the dead of summer would not have much live or the volume of water winter snow melting and spring run off cause.  Enjoy the extra volume of water that makes them lively, faster and the sense of community of seeing old friends in Maine this year. Here is one Maine canoe-kayak race website to use as a reference for tons of Maine events to consider near you.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers - Maine Has A Simple, Honest, Four Season Way Of Life

You own a pair of handcuffs? Chances are very good they came from Houlton Maine or Springfield, Massachusetts.

Those are the manufacturing facilities for Smith & Wesson's handcuff operations. The six millionth pair of handcuffs was produced in my hometown of Houlton recently. And the town is so proud of the S&W brand.  Plant manager Terry Wade I know well and had sold a waterfront cottage to, snowsledded with and see alot at local Chamber of Commerce dinners, etc. He makes sure his brand is a big help to local projects and is a very good local partner to make the area strong. The Houlton operation started out with 18 people in 1966 and has grown to 150 today. Several moves in town along the way and now to an expanded industrial building at the Houlton Maine International Airport. S&W is known for high quality, consistently out performing guns, handcuffs, knives.  Protection of law enforcment and security officers is the number one goal and they achieve every day at the Houlton Maine plant. There are 44 different kinds of restraints, including handcuffs, restraint chains and leg irons. Houlton Maine's labor force is well know for its work ethic, low / no employee turn over and pride of producing a honest day's work and top shelf product.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers - Houlton Maine...Spreading The Word About Area Maine People-Property

    

Say you are an older couple retiring from a factory job in Connecticut. You may have been from Maine originally and went down to Pratt and Whitney, General Dynamics, Electric Boat and now coming home to small town country living.

Safe, no traffic, low cost real estate, friendly people. And you like to play Bingo for one of your past times. It gets you out, you see people during the winter months, its is an easy social, low cost entainment. So show them the recreational events in your town, along with videos on the hospital, the police and fire, the 4th of Julys, etc. Not just homes.  Show them the area they may or may never have been to before. Here is a Houlton Rotary Club video of last night's annual event. Made money that the club gives back to the community in group study exchanges, youth exhange trips and local projects like the extra little league "field of dreams" new baseball diamonds,etc. Are you active in your local civic groups, the heart blood of the local community volunteer work? Sit down, watch the video  and play a game of Bingo below.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers - Maine Volunteer Civic Groups Make Communities Strong, Fun, Healthy

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For years $250 an acre was a long standing benchmark when you bought a piece of Maine forty acres or larger.

For the thousand acre chunks of acreage in Aroostook County the price per acre slid down as the price climb due to the higher the price, the thinner the buyers. Cut over woodland could be as low as $100 an acre because of remoteness, lack of power and in some case, lack of legal right of way access. The loggers worked out a temporary right of way to access the land, yard out the wood. Or so few people that no one seemed to notice the in and out usage of the road.  Eleven people per square mile live in Aroostook County, the largest of Maine's sixteen. Aroostook is the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. 

   

What affects the value of raw land? Features like the amount of road frontage and ease in subdivision, water frontage if any, availability of attractive seller financing terms.

Banks can not sell a land mortgage on the secondary mortgage and upwards to forty percent down payments can be required with higher interest rates charged than on typical owner occupied home loans.  What's the neighborhood like? Many junky trailers, or cars on jacks in the door yards across the street? Same concerns as a home owner has.

     Other features that an appraiser or Maine real estate broker consider in the tally to arrive at current market value for land? Is there wood, ready to market and how many cords of softwood, hardwood and what are local mills paying per cord for it? If the mills are full of certain species and the building industry or paper making mills production is off, the land can go up and down in value just like a stock does in the open trading market. Is there open land ready to build on? Or are steep terrains, rocks, tree stump removal, correction of drainage issues part of the exercise for building for full or part time plans?

Folks retiring, using land for recreation or just investing for the long haul give us a shopping list of features and ease of building/access is on that list.  If the land has an old house site and the existing well or septic system are in tack, that could add another $10,000 value if modern enough, dependable and ready to hook right into with their fifth wheel camper. Tearing the old home down factors as a negative consideration unless salvageable. It's old apple orchard has appeal along with rock walls along the property lines.

     How's the view? Just woods, woods and more woods or jaw dropping miles and miles overlooking water like in the Million Dollar view area of Weston on Grand, Brackett, Deering Lakes?  The better the view, like a gem, the higher the price per acre the land will fetch on the open market. How far is the land from a hospital, school, work? A piece thirty miles from town is fine for peace and relaxation for long weekend recreational users.But the full time home owner with three kids and work can mean the shuttle back and forth will get old and costly gas and time wise.  Land further from population centers is cheaper, more private and may be just the ticket for someone sitting is traffic daily inching along over an hour one way each day to travel eight miles to work, and another hour coming home thru six lanes of traffic. And that's the time frame providing no pile ups, weather hazards. 

Prime farm ground can bring one thousand dollars an acre in 20 plus acre increments and is worth it if close to the farmer's base of operation which saves time with equipment to and from the land.  Just across the border of Maine into New Brunswick Canada the same prime farming ground can have a price tag dangling on it for four and five thousand dollars. Land on water..a river, lake, pond or stream becomes a whole new animal to access because waterfront is more rare, shorter supplied and a good broker never never has enough waterfront offerings in the real estate cupboard. No matter what the overall market conditions. Period.

     People purchase waterfront with their heart and not their head sometimes.

Consider if you are a grandfather, that has poor health, had a stroke, diabetes, poor vision and not able to square dance or tango anymore. He has the money, short on time to live a quality life and desperately wants to see his grandchildren swimming, laughing, eating burgers and hot dogs around a camp fire.

That family picture and his guilt for working too much and being away from his own children growing up is a strong emotion. He has the bank account from chasing the dollar to buy whatever he wants, where ever and when ever he wants. He has little time left on the earth and has been looking for some time for something on a Maine lake for his family. Get out of his way. He will bid higher, pay above the listed price and bend over backwards to find ways to own Maine lake front land. The purchase for his family on water is still way way less expensive then closer to population centers like Portland, Maine or parts of New Hampshire offers.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers - Selling Maine Farm, Waterfront, Wooded And Home Site Land

    

The warmer days, stronger sun mean time to prepare for the 14th annual Northern Maine Soap Box Derby race. For five years running, the Houlton Maine race was the largest in the country with close to 200 racers each year!

Race directors Danny/Leslie Emerson say its time to start looking for car sponsors, digging out older cars to do the safety updates and to start thinking derby race. "The Thrill Of The Hill" is on a specially engineered hill modeled after the world series of derby racing in Akron Ohio. It makes it so much easier to have rallies in the spring and fall and to run the annual race. This year's race is June 20th.

     Visit the NMSBD Site, All American Soap Box Derby Site and sit back..watch the highlights of the 2008 Northern Maine race below! Designed for racers 8 to 17 with three divisions..it is gravity car racing..like NASCAR but no engines. Kids are lined up with a heat sheet, two trips down the hill with an "A" and "B" phase to race for the best electric eye time. Wheels are swapped after "A" phase to keep it competitive. The 14th races is put on by roughly 60 volunteers and hundreds of racers / families that travel from up to two hours away to "Learn The Thrill Of The Hill!"Mark Bossie has a little talk with each drive to make sure they are ready when the green light turns on and he gets the clear to launch voice signal. This is a trial run for new racers the afternoon before the big race.

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