Summer tourists, of course, have been renting a week’s vacation in Maine since forever – since before the lobster bake was invented, even. “Back in the Teens and the Twenties, my grandmother rented cottages for a dollar a week,” muses Ralph Ashmore, long-time real estate broker on Peaks Island. “Told them all they needed to do was pack a steamer trunk and a toothbrush.”
Nowadays that same week’s rental might cost upwards of $3,500, with clean sheets costing extra. The arrangement is often fraught with anxiety. Renters demand dishwashers, while homeowners fret over fragile septic systems. Visitors say they want to an authentic Maine experience, but does that mean with, or without Internet access? Meanwhile, an online advertisement promises a “breathtaking scenic view,” yet fails to mention you might need to climb a pine tree to see it.
The real estate experts who have been doing this for years know all the tricks. And honesty is definitely the first one.
“Tourists want to know what it’s like to be on an island – can I bring a car, is there electricity – there’s a myth of being on a Maine island,” explains John Oldham, a real estate broker and property manager on Islesboro. “If people come here for a week, but spend three to four days ferrying back to the mainland, boy, that’s no way to have a vacation. Part of our job is to make sure it’s a good match – we want them to have a good time, right?”
Anticipating success in this summer rental market may be as elusive as predicting the weather, but as usual, there’s speculation. “The higher end ones – $1,500 and up – are definitely down this year,” notes Steve Miller, part-owner of Vinalhaven Island Rentals. “But you can’t really say it’s about the gas prices because people on the higher end don’t give a crap about the gas prices.”
Some seem to think 9/11 put a permanent dent in the summer-rental market. “Rentals are slow this year, they were slow last year, and the year before,” observes Don Pendleton, owner of Islesboro Realty. “Since 9/11, they’ve been slower than usual – and my gut feeling is that people are taking more vacations, last-minute trips and shorter trips.”
And have increased property taxes put more rental properties on the summer market?
“More people are renting out their properties this year – to pay for renovations, to pay for taxes, or they’re just not using it this year – but they don’t say and I don’t ask,” says Oldham.
Over on Vinalhaven, broker Steve Miller has no doubts: “No question about it – half our people are renting because property taxes are going up so much.”
Everyone agrees that repeat business is the key to success – the ideal tenant is one with a prompt deposit check, who leaves everything in order upon check-out and then faithfully returns every year for a repeat performance.