Featured Listings
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35 Whitney, Portland
$ 274,900
4 Bed, 2 Bath,1,925 sq feet
Buying Real Estate in Maine
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An Overview of the Maine Home Buying Process
View a nice graphical flow chart of the entire Maine home buying process. click here 
Assembling a Real Estate Team
The 2 critical players are the real estate agent and your mortgage broker/banker...click here
Financing Overview
There are all sort of loan programs and options currently available and rates are currently extremely low... click here
We welcome comments and feedback anytime. Please feel free to contact us directly via live chat, email or phone.
Maine Real Estate Area Specific Overviews
I encourage you to take a look at the various: Portland, Coastal and southern Maine community pages that I have created as I believe they provide a good overview of the regions and thier corresponding housing markets:
The Real Estate Agent - Back to Top
The real estate agent often gets a bad rap, primarily because there are a lot of less then professional and helpful agents out there. Of utmost importance is to find an agent whom is knowledgable, professional and whom you can trust. The agent helps in numerous ways from initially simply providing real estate listings to look and then setting up the showings. The real value is through their counselling on all aspects of the process, knowing if something is priced accurately and understanding how the system works to ensure you get the best value and price.
There are 2 ways you can purchase a home in Maine:
1)
Through the listing agent
2)
With the help of a Buyers Agent
Do you have to work with a Buyers Agent?
No, but it can make your life a whole lot easier. Having somebody working for YOU and whom you can trust ensures you will get the best deal Affiliating with an agent knowledgeable about the area and whom you feel comfortable with is critical. The best part about working with an agent is that it is Free! A buyers agent makes their money from the selling agents commission. Simply contact me, shoot me an email john@greentreemaine.com or call 207-650-5383 anytime and I would be more than happy to answer any questions, discuss the process, etc...
More info on Maine Buyers Agency
The Mortgage Broker - Back to Top
Equally important is finding a person you feel comfortable with to talk to about your finances and to provide you with quality information on what sort of loan programs are available and what would work best for your situation.
Generally most banks and mortgage brokers offer similar programs and rates so it thus becomes a question of who you like and who you feel will simply do a better, more professional job.
Maine Financing Overview - Back to top
There are 3 primary loan types:
- Full Documentation - FULLY DOCUMENTED disclosure of last 2 years income, assets and liabilities, (tax returns and W2's.) Borrowable amt primarily determined by your debt/income ratios.
- Stated Income - UN-DOCUMENT disclosure of income, assets and liabilities. Borrowable amt. determined by a combination of debt/income ratios and credit score.
- No Doc - No disclosure of anything. Borrowable amount determined entirely by credit score and the person applying for the loan
In today’s market pretty much full documentation is all that is left as an option to finance a home.
How much can I borrow?
Determined by 3 primary factors: Your income, your credit, your debt/income ration.
What is Debt/Income ratio?
When you take all your monthly debt obligations (ie car payment, student loans) and add in your potential housing payment (including property taxes and insurance)...all summed together can’t be greater than 33% to 45% of your gross income (before income tax number).
How much money do I need to put down?
A conventional loan consist of putting 20% of the purchase price down, but given many first time homebuyers do not have this type of cash, the government has 2 great programs currently out there.
FHA—3% down payment
Rural Development— No down payment, basically 100% financing. Note: an area must be designated rural to qualify for this loan. Most of Maine other than Portland and South Portland qualify though.
Thanks for reading about buying a home in Maine.
I do hope you reach out and have a great day!
John Herrigel
Maine Buyers Agent
Green Tree Realty
My Areas of Knowledge
- Southern and Mid Coastal Waterfront regions
- Maine First Time Homebuyers
- Real Estate in Greater Portland Maine
- Bath Maine real estate
- Brunswick Maine real estate
- Phippsburg, Harpswell, Georgetown
- Freeport - Cape Elizabeth - Yarmouth - Cumberland - South Portland - Falmouth
Some Overview Articles
Most Maine real estate markets can be divided into water influenced/waterfrontage and non-waterfront property resulting in a wide variety of pricing.
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