Commercial Real Estate in Portland’s Bayside Area

Posted on January 11, 2007
Filed Under General Maine Real Estate | Leave a Comment

February 14th is the date slated for the opening of the first Whole Foods Market in Portland, a 46,000 square foot project at the corner of Franklin and Somerset in Portland’s Bayside region, on the back side of the East end.  A stones throw away from competitors Wild Oats and Hannaford this project will employ over 200 Maine residents and serve as a preliminary infusion of invesment into an area of town that is set to see over 240 million in investment over the coming years, including high end residential condos, a luxury cruise ship terminal, and retail/office space expansion. 

The redevelopment of this 110 acre industrial neighborhood is part of Portlands master plan to improve areas around the city that have not seen the drastic transformations and infusions of capital for improvement that areas including “the Old Port” and Eastern Promenade have over the past 10-15 years.  From the city website: “Bayside is intended to be an attractive urban gateway featuring a mix of uses, compact and intensive development as an extension of the downtown.”  Read more here…

Southern Maine Foreclosure Rates

Posted on January 8, 2007
Filed Under General Maine Real Estate | Leave a Comment

Real estate foreclosure rates on sub-prime loans are expected to jump 160% in the Portland-Biddeford region according to a study released by the Center for Responsible Lending.  They project 17.8% of all sub prime loans taken out to buy a home in Maine in 2006 will ultimately enter the foreclosure process.  Nationwide 2.2 million homes whos loans originated in the last 9 years will enter foreclosure, resulting in a loss of wealth greater than 164 billion dollars. 

Who is to blame?  What will be the net result?  Why is it happening?  After the 2001 nationwide recession, interest rates dropped to some of the lowest levels ever seen in our nations history,  lenders thus decided to take on more risk and loan to less creditworthy parties enabling would be home owners to obtain loans.  Unfortunately these loans were at higher rates, generally adjustable and not requiring any equity contribution from the buyer (100% financing) thus enticing  first time homebuyers to get in the game when perhaps they shouldn’t have.  Now as the rates adjust up and with houses that have seen little or negative appreciation, these parties have no equity to refinance and significantly higher payments that one simply can’t afford. 

The net result will be a flooding of inventory onto the Maine real estate market, thus lowering prices further and putting many hard working individuals into the poor house!  The flip side will be for new Maine homebuyers who can obtain solid financing, a plethora of great opportunites will be coming onto the market with extremely motivated sellers.

Who is to blame?  Lenders perhaps who have pushed these loans onto people whom should have had no business getting into these risly endeavors. The subprime loan market has been extremely lucrative for brokers who can charge high up front fees to borrowers and don’t tell the borrow of the implications of the loan 2-5 years down the road. 

How to find property for sale in Maine

Posted on January 4, 2007
Filed Under General Maine Real Estate | Leave a Comment

In Maine as with every other state there is a centralized database that licensed real estate agents input new listing into called MREIS IDX or the Maine Real Estate Information System IDX better known by most as the MLS (Multiple Listing Service.) The database contiains “listed” property for sale in 4 basic categories residential, multi unit, land, and commerical.

This database then populates (with a time delay) property seach functions on company and agent real estate websites including the best nationwide site to search Realtor.com. When using sites other than Realtor.com, be sure you see the following at the bottom of the screen or be vary wary of where this data is coming from.

As the internet continues to transform the industry of real estate new arenas for finding property exist. The MREIS and corresponding search functions are still leaps and bounds ahead of competing sites and thus maintain the most comprehensive database of current listings on the market in Maine, but one should not overlook the For Sale by Owner websites including:

MaineMLS.com - Assist to Sell in Maine, not related to MLS as all!!!
Craigslist.org - Fast growing, free
ForSaleByYou.com
PostYourProperty.com

As of late advanced but userfriendly mapping technolgies have become readily available to would be entrepreneurs and start of companies.  Try going to Google and typing in “real estate” and see what happens. If you have not been to www.zillow.com, I recommend you try this site as well to see this new breed of real estate technology.