Waterfront in Maine direct sale

[Benjamin Smith]

Hello, I haven’t posted here in a while. I relied heavily on bigger pockets to help guide me through the sale of a 4 plex in pittsburgh that we now own. It’s nice to be back. 

We are getting ready to purchase our first single family home. We have been renting a really special place right on the water in Penobscot Bay in Maine. The landlords are aging and are sick of maintaining the house which has some significant issues. They’ve offered to cut us an obscene deal on the place and we are gearing up to move forward. 

A couple of questions. First of all we’ve never done a private party sale, we used an agent on the last one. Should we get an RE lawyer? Does ours write the deal or does theirs? Should we just use an agent?

Anyone have any experience with waterfront homes in Maine? The house has some drainage issues and will require some hardscaping and foundation work. What permitting agencies will we need to consult? 

What should we consider regarding taxes? It looks like we are only getting an acre and a half out of the deal which, I think will actually work to our advantage because our taxes will be almost as much as our mortgage. Will we be reappraised immediately after repairing/renovating or can we stay under the radar?

[Eileen McCue]

@Benjamin Smith, We are closing on a seller financed deal later this week.  We are using a dual agent (same realtor for us and the seller). We agreed to that as we were both familiar with the agent, have worked with him before.  It is appealing for the seller since the realtor agreed to only collect 3% (rather than 6% as would be paid if there were a buyer's and seller's agent), so they save half the realtor fees.  The seller had already contracted with the realtor so it is a slightly different situation.  We have found that a good realtor can totally be an asset and worth their fees, but again, we are folks who will spend the extra funds to make sure we have things totally dialed.  I will also say, we've found that a mediocre or sub-par realtor can sometimes be a hindrance in putting a deal together. It can be cumbersome to have to negotiate through a realtor who doesn't really understand our perspective.

For this deal we are using a real estate lawyer to do the title work and closing.  He is also drawing up all the loan documents.  I feel that it is 100% worth the extra costs (about $1200) for peace of mind and knowing we have the legalities covered, and so the seller feels comfortable.  We also hired a building inspector.  We typically spend the money for a good quality inspection, which might run $500-1000, but again we want to have all our ducks in a row and make sure there are no surprises.  We also find that having that professional report helps us in negotiations around work that will need to be done, especially safety or structural issues.  Then the seller knows it is not just our opinion that the deck looks like it is falling off the building, or that the foundation really does need work.

If you are on Penobscot Bay, you might not be that far away.  We are in Belfast and use Lee Woodward as our lawyer on real estate transactions.  Also, Sam Mitchell is an excellent realtor in the area. Hope this helps!