They are good questions. The issues they raise out of concern for public safety and investment protection would be standard in other areas.
For example, if someone asks where are the bad areas, or shady seedy crime riddled areas to avoid in Aroostook County, or Northern Maine, you have to smile. The poser is thinking city, crime, shanty town areas of gangs, no respect for personal property or even human life. You know, the kind of areas in cities where you don’t go through unless you absolutely have to. And you roll through those stop signs, keep your eyes front and center, don’t make visual contact and avoid anyone you meet becoming skilled at the survival tactic of not being noticed. Non confrontation, like a spec of dust masterful of blending in, passing through, fearing for your life. We don’t live like that in Aroostook County. We wave at each other, help each other, need each other, respect exists for our neighbors, friends, and in many cases family members.
You don’t carry a taser. You car and home are not even locked. The keys in the vehicles sitting in the yard may look inviting to someone who’s brother owns a chop shop if we were in an urban setting. But we are not. Never will be. Our location insulates us. Stolen cars are common place in population centers. But consider a map of Maine (pointing to Houlton Maine, on the Canadian border of New Brunswick)…and ask yourself, who is going to travel this far north, to not find many exotic cars to steal knowing there is a variable arsenal of local law enforcement that is ready but not faced with this problem? No need to
curb a situation that does not exist. In the case of Houlton Maine, the Troop F State Police are headquartered here, there is a sea of white and green striped US Border Patrol agents exploring the highways and back road border crossings, local Aroostook County Deputy Sheriffs, local Houlton ME Police and one other key element for crime that is missing here. We have respect for other people’s personal property, respect for how hard folks work and how you would not want something stolen or vandalized if the shoe was on the other foot.
So when I get asked a common question as a Maine real estate broker of where are the bad areas, the neighborhoods to avoid, I smile. There are no bad towns, no crime infested areas. With 11 people, not a 1000 good and bad folks per square mile, crime is the country’s 4th lowest for the Pine Tree State. The northern most county, Aroostook is half that state percentage again.
The only “bad town” is one located further away from work or health care or the school activities your youngsters’s are in because of the drive time distance and extra cost of gas getting to and fro.
It’s the hassle and gas, car wear and tear element, not crime that concerns folks here. For example, Haynesville Maine has 136 folks in an area six by six miles. It’s 22 miles from Houlton Maine. Last check Hersey Maine had around 45 folks full time in the same land area, the typical grid for all over this part of the state. People get along and there is space, not
tension or squabbles over being jammed in or any need to defend every square inch of real estate. It’s like being at Disney Land, and no line at Space Mountain, not many people for that matter to get in the way, to watch out for or avoid. The situation does not exist which comes with the territory of elbow to elbow urban areas.
Another common questions that might need to be raised in other parts of the country. This one not involved cities. Do the mineral rights in Maine, the water, everything under the ground come with this property? Yes, in nearly 30 years of selling northern Maine real estate, I have had two instances where some older codger thought there was gold in those hills and mineral rights were excluded, not conveyed in a deed. Two out of thousands of transactions which shows the question is not posed very often. Aroostook County Maine, get here quick as you can. This Maine FAQ video may help you too!