We don't want them, but I'm not worried, yet; they'll be gone in two years
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(I say “we”, though I’m really just a most-of-the-time visitor here. I like to hunt and shoot and fish, and have fit in with my neighbors more easily, I believe, than this latest crop of transplants will.)
When asked if it was COVID-19 that forced him to flee New York for Maine in March, Jordan Cohen doesn’t waffle.
“One hundred percent,” the Greenwich Village native, 40, told The Post. “It was when things looked precarious and we didn’t know if we’d get out.”
Jordan grew up near Grace Church, attended Bronx Science and has family ties that go back to Ellis Island arrivals. But he also has warm memories of sleepaway camp and family vacations in Maine. It’s where he took his girlfriend, Elisabeth, on their first trip together. It’s also where, a year later, he proposed at Acadia National Park. So when it was time to beat a hasty retreat from the coronavirus, Jordan looked north.
“I always dreamed of living in Maine,” he said, “but it wasn’t possible because of work.”
Then the pandemic hit, and Jordan lost his tech job. He and his now-wife, Elisabeth, made the move, intending to “ride out” COVID in more rustic climes — but ultimately stayed.
After renting in Searsmont, a town of some 1,617 people inland from coastal Camden, they bought a historic home from 1925 on desirable Chestnut Street in Camden itself for $725,000. Elisabeth, 35, does sales work remotely from the finished attic (with a view of Mt. Battie), while Jordan started his own marketing agency, the Fox Hill Group.
Prospective renters and buyers were desperate, according to brokers on the frontlines. “People have called and said ‘Get me any house in Maine,’ ” said Gwyneth Freeman of Better Homes & Gardens, The Masiello Group.
A strong economy and low interest rates made 2019 a historically good year for Maine real estate, resulting in 40 percent less inventory in 2020. When frantic out-of-staters began looking to escape the pandemic, housing demand exceeded supply, pushing prices up and accounting for a large volume of closed sales.
“Because of COVID, April and May sales were down,” said Tom Cole, president of the Maine Association of Realtors. “But June picked up, and July was gangbusters, with nearly 6 percent more out-of-state buyers than last year. In August, out-of-state sales went up nearly 10 percent, showing a clear trend of what’s happening.”
“It’s the most crazy market I’ve seen,” added Nancy Hughes of Camden Coast Real Estate. “There’s a very high demand, with people willing to pay high prices, but the lack of inventory made prices even higher.”
As a result, it’s common for a property to attract multiple offers; in fact, a “picturesque three-bedroom” in Brunswick (home to Bowdoin College) attracted a whopping 12. Bidding wars are now prevalent and offers made sight unseen, based solely on video tours given by realtors doing walk-throughs for clients sitting at home. Needless to say, houses don’t linger on the market long. The Brunswick house sold within four days of listing for $274,900 to a Nashville couple who paid well over ask: the handsome sum of $305,000.
“We’d see something we liked and look back a day later and it would be under contract,” said Rich G., a 37-year-old lawyer who relocated with his girlfriend from “hectic” Toms River, New Jersey, to Aroostook County.
The couple paid $159,000 for a three-bedroom ranch in Caribou, in the northeast corner of the state near the Canadian border. But they had to move fast.
“We made an offer within a day or two because we really liked the house,” said Rich, who asked not to publish his surname. “We acted quickly because we knew what was happening in the market.”
Portland went left fifteen-twenty years ago as Massholes and New Yorkers discovered its inventory of old houses amid a vibrant cultural scene of restaurants, coffee shoppes and incredible views of Penobscot Bay. But the restaurants are all closed, most permnently, as are the music venues, bars and coffee shops.
Will they come back? Well, consider that the local branch of Bernie Sanders’ American Socialist Party has five seperate referendums on the ballot this year, proposals ranging from rent control, a $15 an hour minimum wage ($22 per hour for so long as the COVID “emergency” continues), a Green agenda that will drive the cost of new housing sky-high and require the existing housing stock to be retrofitted for energy efficiency, a prohibition against new fuel supplies, even hydro-power from Canada. Recovery will be long delayed, if the city comes back at all, and without Portland, there is no “city life” in Maine.
Portland is below what was long called the Volvo, and now the Subaru Line, and just two hours from Boston. These naive newcomers are buying north of the line, heading into the northern counties, five-to twelve hours from Boston (and fifteen from New York), where Betty’s Diner provides the sole source of dining, except for church potluck suppers on Sunday afternoons. No tapas bars, no tasting menus, no cheese shops, no theatre, no entertainment of any kind, except for amateur nights at that same church.
And that’s during the summer. If there’s a bleaker spot than Caribou, Maine, in November, it’s Caribou in March. Yes, there’s hunting, snowmobiling and ice fishing available, and it’s possible that these newcomers will discover heretofore unknown pleasures therein, but I suspect that novelty will wear off for these former West Villagers before the first endless winter leaves in June, taking them with it.
If they do leave, and attempt to resell the houses they purchased at record prices this year, they’ll discover that the market has disappeared. No one willingly moves to Bangor or Presque Isle — the tundra’s been losing population since the potato industry shifted to Idaho decades ago and the blueberry market went to New Jersey.
We’ll be glad to see them go, but I hope they’ll stick around long enough to attend their new home’s annual Town Meeting, usually held in February or March, and provide local amusement; it’d be so much fun to see the reaction when they propose banning hunting (which they’ve done in many of the towns south of the Subaru Line) and raising property taxes to pay for introducing a critical race theory curriculum in the town’s K-12 school, and sending the constable to Boston for racial sensitivity training.
Here’s a warning
…..One taciturn Mainer told The Post his opinion on the subject, if not his name. “We’re fine with people moving up here,” the long-time local drawled. “It’s just when they want to change everything that we could have a problem.”
Tulip, beware.
