Bacteria in Water Test

Posted on March 25, 2012 by KevinMurphy

If you have a water test come back positive for coliform bacteria does that mean your septic system is leaking waste into your drinking water?

Coliform bacteria isn’t actually a health risk. It is tested for because it is an indicator bacteria to confirm the presence of decaying organic matter. This can even be from grass! They are now recommending that the caps of the well be changed to the sealed style pictured to the right. Because it wasn’t actually sealed, grass and bugs could find their way in to the well water..

There is however Fecal Coliform or e.coli which is found in the colon’s of animals(eew!) However typically the bacteria is filtered out in a small amount of soil. The way to determine if your septic system is leaching in to your water supply is actually to do a detergent test. Detergent is dissolved into the liquid and will travel with the water through soil without being filtered out. It is also important to consider indoor sources of e.coli and fecal coliform that may have contaminated a water test.

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Project G.R.A.C.E.

Posted on March 22, 2012 by KevinMurphy

Buy or Sell a home with me in 2012 and I will donate 10% of my commission to Project G.R.A.C.E. (Granting Resources and Assistance Through Community Effort) which is a local non-profit providing help to families and children in Scarborough. http://www.projectgracemaine.org/

KM@TRESMaine.com
207-883-4327 Ext: 15
Cell/Txt: 207-756-3776

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How Much Does A Buyer’s Agent Cost Me?

Posted on March 22, 2012 by KevinMurphy

Did you know that having a buyer’s agent represent you usually doesn’t cost you anything? Free!

When a house is listed for sale with a broker the seller will have a contract with that broker specifying that they will pay X% of commission in exchange for providing a ready, willing, and able buyer. Except for very rare circumstances, if a buyer comes with their own buyer-broker the seller’s broker will share the commission with the buyer-broker. We do this because we’re all working towards the same goal. Since the broker representing the seller doesn’t have to do all of the work to get the property to a closing, the commission is shared between the buyer-broker and the seller-broker. Real estate commission is paid by the seller and the buyer doesn’t have to pay any commission.

Pretty much the only situations you would have to pay a commission are when the property being purchased isn’t listed with a real estate broker. This would be like a for sale by owner, friend/neighbor, or auction property that doesn’t offer buyer-broker commissions. That doesn’t mean if you might be looking at some of these properties you shouldn’t contact a broker though, because it’s not an automatic. Many for sale by owner properties now offer buyer commission, and if you have a specific property in mind you may be able to negotiate a lower commission rate and/or different level of service for a lower commission.

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Recent Statistics

Posted on March 22, 2012 by KevinMurphy

Recently the National Association of Realtors and the Maine Association of Realtors released some interesting statistics they had collected. Here are some interesting excerpts:

One in four home sales are in Cumberland county (25%)
More sales occur in Cumberland county than in Aroostook, Franklin, Knox, Lincoln, Piscataquis, Sagadahoc, Somerset, Waldo, and Washington counties combined.

Forty-four percent of recent home buyers were first-time buyers in Maine, compared to a national level of 37 percent – a drop from 50 percent in 2010.

The typical buyer in Maine was 43 years old

Nationally, 89 percent of buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker

The share of home sellers who sold their home without the assistance of a real estate agent was 10 percent nationally. Forty percent of FSBO (For Sale By Owner) knew the buyer prior to home purchase. Nationally, the typical FSBO home sold for $150,000 compared to $215,000 among agent-assisted home sales. In Maine, the typical FSBO sold for $78,500 compared to $180,000 among agent-assisted home sales.

Nearly nine in ten buyers would use their agent again or recommend them to others, both nationally and in Maine.

* Data was collected from the NAR “2011 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers Maine Report” and MAR eleven-year Maine home sales statistics

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Great Time To Buy, What About Selling?

Posted on February 5, 2012 by KevinMurphy

“Great time to buy!” is a mantra I’m certain we’ve all heard, especially recently. Most people think that means it must be a bad time to sell, but that simply isn’t true. What will you do if you sell your house; buy another one!

Say you paid $300,000 two years ago. You sell your house for $200,000. In the next town over (which is closer to your job, think how much gas money you’ll save) you buy a house for $200,000 that was for sale for $350,000 at the same time you bought your house two years ago.

Since prices are lower right now you can purchase a new house at a low price too. It’s hard to break down a home into a numerical value, the easiest and most natural way to think of it is what you paid for it. If you buy a gallon of milk for $4.00 and the next day someone ask how much you would sell it to them, the answer is pretty obvious! Ask a stock broker though and you’ll get a much more complicated answer about milk futures and the current value of the dollar. From a buyers perspective the value of your home is dictated by the comparison to other homes that are for sale and not what you paid for it.

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