Interesting story- Vacant homes (BDN)

[LoLo4444]

Originally Posted by Kiwiluver

Your husband may be able to secure work with the US guberment up North in Washington or Aroostook counties. In New England it is hard to get a social worker position w/out graduate level education at least from ads I looked at. The University of Maine has campuses at Machias (Washington County) and Fort Kent ( Aroostook County) both areas are my personal idea of heaven. Bangor traffic is terrible. If one is to believe the media crime abounds. JMHO

A government job originally brought my husband to Maine as he was stationed at the Coast Guard station in Southwest Harbor (he's originally from CT, but was also stationed in Boston and Portsmouth, he can't believe he's put up with FL as long as he has).


In regards to social work, I can go back to Child Protective Services which I did for several years after college. Maine is like most states in that regard, there's always a dire need: Maine Bureau of Human Resources: Open Competitive Listing (that pink bar has been there since 2014).
I knew about UMaine having a campus in Machias, but didn't know about the one in Aroostook until someone mentioned it in this thread.


I'm not opposed to living in a rural area, I've heard nice things about the "The County" and Washington County as well. My husband's the one that wants to leave Portland (and even Boston!) on the list of places to apply for jobs. Honestly, I think if he found a good job in Hancock County he'd take it in a heartbeat. He loved living on MDI (for obvious reasons) but he was quite happy in Ellsworth too. I had no idea Bangor had traffic issues, that's good to know. I have heard about their opiate issues.

[phoenix02]

We are getting closer to our move from California to Maine. We plan on getting the house up for sale in April, hopefully having it sold and on the road by June.

The fun part so far has been looking for a place to settle down. Being self employed, as long as I have a post office or Fed-Ex within a reasonable driving distance and at least DSL internet, we are good to go. We home school as well, so that's not an issue. I'm glad to see the inexpensive prices are a real thing- I know photos can put a lot of lipstick on a real estate pig, and I've been worried that anything in my price range will be a facade with no house behind it or something. We will have around $50k to buy a house, in cash, and do whatever repairs are necessary. I am a carpenter and general handyman type, so that only has to cover materials as I will do all labor. Basically I am hoping for a good foundation, good roof- a box that doesn't leak. I can do whatever repairs from there, as long as it can be liveable within my budget and I will make upgrades and further repairs from there. I know it's a tight budget, but it seems like I will be able to do it, somewhere.

Oh, and to complicate things further, we are planning on going to Bangor as our base of operations and renting a short term house or extended stay hotel for a couple months, so not only do I have a short budget but also a compacted timeframe. But, we feel God is leading us to Maine, so hopefully it will work itself out. :-)