Top 5 Reasons Why Portland Maine Is Perfect For Visit | But Not For Living | Portland Maine Overview

all right guys welcome to the channel in this episode if you've been thinking about moving to Maine you've probably heard a lot about Portland Main uh Portland Maine is like one of the top 10 cities to move to in the country according to US News and World Report I think it was number eight actually last year but in this episode I'm going to give you the pros and the cons of living in Portland Maine and you might be surprised because generally my glass is half full I love living in Maine I'm from Maine but I feel these cons outweigh the pros of living in Portland Maine so if you want to know about Portland stick around because we're going to get after it right [Music] now all right guys welcome to the channel of live life in Maine my name is Scott TBO I'm a broker with exp reality but more importantly than that uh um uh my wife and I have five children we have two grandchildren another one on the way I just found out on Saturday uh I'm a veteran I've lived in Maine almost my whole life and I'm a true Manor so what is a true Manor a true Manor is somebody who was born and raised grew up in Maine so if you weren't born here but you grew up here you're not a true Manor or if you grew up here or let's say other one if you grew up here but we're not born here you're not a true Manor so you have to be born here and grew up here to be a true Manor otherwise you're what is called a new maner guys I've been all over the state and I'm pretty vers in the state of main so the whole purpose of this Channel and these episodes is is just give you some uh help you stay informed and educated of what's going on up here in Maine in case you're looking to move here invest here or sell here guys my team and I here at exp reality we get calls text emails all the time asking us if we can help you people just like you move here or sell here or relocate here or invest here and we love it so it doesn't matter if you're going to move here in 6 weeks 6 months maybe sometime in the future if this in if this information is of interest and you find it valuable that I I would encourage you to subscribe tap that Bell to be the first to be notified when I drop new content on a weekly basis and also uh drop some lines in the content on what you uh what you'd like to see in terms of uh content that I can deliver to you we've been getting a lot of requests I've been getting requests about the schools I've been getting requests about obviously the markets I actually got a request which I'm going to do pretty soon on the whole process of buying a home in Maine from the beginning to end so I'm going to do that soon too but in this episode I've been getting a lot of comments and questions about Portland Maine what it's like they've heard a lot of good things about it and there is a ton of good things to talk about Portland man but there's also some cons now um this is my perspective I want to let you know that um I'm not speaking for every Maine person out there there's a lot of people that love Portland Maine I do love Portland Main but I love it for a different reason than what people may think um but we're going to get into that right now why um you may want to consider moving to Portland Main and or you may not want to consider moving to Portland M but somewhere in the surrounding Community or if you're looking to sell and you're looking to buy in Portland Main same thing so I wrote a little cheat sheet to keep me going here's the top five Pros in my opinion of Portland Maine uh because I believe in going with the good first and then we'll get into the cons afterwards so first pro of Portland Maine without a doubt is in my opinion it's restaurant scene now guys I'm about 240 I'm about 62 too I work out I'm in pretty good shape but I love food and uh Poland Maine is crazy in the amount of restaurants they have um in Portland Main actually um last year 2023 it was ranked ninth in terms of the most restaurants per capita and I thought it was higher than that but I had to put it into some perspective so the eight cities that are ranked higher than Portland Maine are Los Angeles New York City Chicago San Francisco Philly and Houston along with New Orleans and Vegas now guys Los Angeles New York City Chicago San Francisco Philly and Houston the population of those six cities is more than the population of the entire state of Maine and Portland falls into their ranking of eighth out of out of the top 10 so that will tell you something about Poland main right there in the restaurants only New Orleans and Vegas which are smaller than the other six cities but again much larger six times the size of Portland Maine are ranked higher as well so it's I think the order is like Los Angeles New York uh New York I think actually New Orleans is number one um but the point I'm just trying to make is for the size that Portland Main is it gets tremendous amount of reviews and Bone appeti and other magazine articles have come out and said it's one of the best places to eat in the country um guys there's like 200 and some OD restaurants in Portland Maine some of my favorites are Central Provisions 4 Street Old Port Sea Grill duck fat scales Jay's oyster Boon fishing house I mean you can go on and on and on and on guys there is so much to do I would encourage you if you're coming up to Maine to visit Portland just go to type in Portland Main or visit Portland Main and there's a whole there's a whole website and all kinds of stuff by the tour tourism industry of all the different places you can eat and all the different things you can do in Portland Main but definitely the number one Pro in my opinion to Portland Maine is it's food scene it's unlike any other that I've been around I have traveled all over this country I have been to New Orleans I have been to Vegas let's see I have been to New Orleans I have been to Vegas I have been to New York not Chicago not San Fran I have been to Philly not Houston um I still take pole of main over any of those obviously because I'm from here maybe a little biased but really really good food all right the second Pro to live in in Portland Main is Casco Bay so no doubt I mean that's how Portland Main was settled because of Casco Bay it was a shipping and ship building and trading post but Casco Bay which really is how Portland Main was put together and built if you look at a map you'll see that's the bay that's the ocean right there the islands the views the things you can do in the really more so the summertime but the tours you can go on the sights you will see the wildlife from the seals to the Eagles um just sitting out on a Pier having a cocktail looking out over Casco Bay guys not much not much Els has been so eye appealing than that in my history of 56 years on this Earth so definitely Casco Bay there's tons of things you're going to see the views are the views are um just incredible um get take go on a boat tour in a prior video uh you probably if you look back at some of my other videos You'll see going on a Casco Bay boat tour to view the islands you can go on a mailboat tour or just a tour of the of tour of Casco Bay through Casco Bay line see the islands that are in and around all of Portland Main tremendous tremendous place uh to see in the views is just incredible definitely one of God's handyman Works um looking at Casco Bay number three portain is a pretty old city I think it was formed in like 1600s by the Indians or when the English first settled it it actually it burn has burned down like four times from the Revolutionary War to before uh this country became a country to I guess there was some huge celebration and in uh 1866 on July 4th where they burned down almost all the buildings right on the Main Street um called Commercial Street at the time uh so it's been burned down and it's been rebuilt but there is so much historical information about Port Main and a lot of those buildings still exist obviously the ones that didn't burn down and um there's this one building I got it's going to escape my mind but I my daughter I think she was in sixth or seventh grade had a tour at winter time at Christmas time uh this boy old Victorian house I can't remember the name of it but it's pretty popular if you look it up and man it is just breathtaking how this house is decorated but it's massive it's a mansion um but portl has a lot of historical value it was actually when Maine was settled as a state in 1820 it was actually the capital of Maine at that time that had since obviously shifted up to Augusta why I don't know cuz Portland is the largest city in Maine but um it's got a ton of historical value T ton of historical content you definitely if you're historian or you like to learn about history definitely you're not going to be uh let down if you go to Poland and go on some of those tours go to Portland uh Historical Society look at how Portland Maine became Portland Main and all it has to offer about how uh Maine kind of was settled in what how Portland Maine was a driving factor that with its ship building and trading and all that so you're going to enjoy the historical charm of Portland cuz a lot of those buildings still exist and it's just kind of the way New England was built at the time um Now flip on on the other side if you're a little bit younger incredible music and entertainment city as well so um you know Portland Maine to me is kind of like it's kind of like the 30 and younger crowd right if you're not if you're single or just have a significant other you don't have kids and all that then you know and I was guilty of this port m is the place to go there's no doubt about it the night life the bar scene the dance clubs um you know every year they have the oldport music festival which they shut down a ton of streets right in the oldport and there's hundreds of thousands of people that go to this Festival um there's multiple bands on multiple streets I mean we've had bands Poland has had bands I should say like um um what's that one um God I'm getting old because I'm forgetting but Sister Christian oh the time has come I don't remember the name of the band but uh some pretty big bands have come through there uh and toured in there and done some music in there and the oldport festival so um uh you definitely definitely would love to be in Portland during one of those music uh music festivals or when they shut down the streets for the oour festival and then there's all these Musical there's all you know you can go to the Merill Auditorium all these plays uh there are there's a ton of stuff to do in Portland Main to visit into uh tour or to see or activities no doubt about it so I put that as number four and then number five what also Portland m is really synonymous and famous for is its hand craftsmanship not just the beers there's a lot of beer companies in there a lot of homemade beers um I think Portland's one of the top micr Brew uh cities in the country but just some of the stuff that people have created um from the ship building industry to the crafts and all that uh you can't go wrong with going to Portland Main and checking all that stuff out it is definitely worth it it's definitely going to take you you could literally spend a couple weeks in Portland Main and taking in all the activities and all the things are out to do the coffee shops uh that are just booming everywhere the the hotels that are sprouting up everywhere it is crazy how fast Portland Main is growing uh in terms of that uh in terms of that aspect and I'm going to get into this a minute in a con but from a pro perspective the tourists that come to Port I think last year if I don't if I my memory serves correctly I read this it was like 82 million people that came into Maine uh as a whole and Portland was a vast majority of those people it creates like $6.2 billion doar industry um like 150,000 jobs it's just crazy the tourism industry in in Maine and Portland Maine's a big part of that um the tourism industry is the number one industry in all of Maine uh you're going to hear about this in some other videos that I've done in the past as a as in general it's a tourism industry I mean if you're up north it's kind of the forest industry the potato industry and if you kind in southern M which includes Portland M it's kind of Health Care and Technology but in general if you look at the whole state I think the tourism industry does the biggest bank for its Buck um you got Portland you got Bar Harbor you got all that Mid Coast region and then you got um the hills and the mountains and the skiing and all that so when you add it all in together I guess the tourism is industry is the biggest however those other Industries are pretty they're more geographically uh located but all right guys now we're going to talk about the cons of living in Portland Maine very different than visiting in Portland Maine and honestly I get it I may get feedback I may I may lose some people it's okay I get it I'm my job is to give you real time my beliefs on what Portland Maine is and uh hav't been living here my whole life or almost my whole life other than I spent in the military as a veteran and now I'm a veteran obviously um but the cons in my opinion outweigh the pros they really do most of the pros around tourism I'm sure there are other Pros to liveing in Portland Main especially if you're single or if you're young kind of Portland Maine is kind of like the younger crowd for me I mean if you're looking to start a family and all that I wouldn't stay in Portland Maine but I'm sure you know obviously there are people it's a lot Main's lar City so there are people that obviously a lot of people that live there but if it was me I wouldn't be living in Portland Maine just checking my audio I keep losing it so um let's get into the cons of Portland Maine and by far without a doubt in my opinion the number one con of living in Portland Maine is the housing affordability guys this is just kind of stupid the average list price in January of 2024 was a whopping 17,682 talking about Portland Maine we're talking about Maine the way life should be who can afford 17,682 for a house in Portland that's only got 60,000 people when it's not full of Tourism guys the only thing I can say about that number it's stupid it's just stupid um that was January 2024 which was last month it's gone up 18.4 one% since since January of 2023 when the average list price of a house was $851,000 interesting fact the average sold price in uh 2024 now we're only talking two months January and February obviously and typically winter times are the slowest in Maine because of the weather um there's less people that sell there's less people that buy but that number is up almost 9365 that number is up almost $42,000 the average sold price $635,500 of January and February compared to the average sold price for all of last year was $593,000 in Portland Maine I just think there's so many other options to go now if you want to live right down in the hustle and bustle if you're a doctor and you're working at Main Med and you want to be on the western prom or you want to be on the new Eastern prom that's well been developed and you want to be right in the middle of it all well then and you can afford it then go for it but I think for the vast majority of people and I'm speaking like I'm an average guy an average American I don't think I I I don't think you want to live there that's just my two cents so home prices number one number two if you're going to have a family in Portland Main you better send them to a private school and I'm going to I'm going to tell you why and I'm not really trying to put down the Portland School District the Portland Public School District but there are 177 school districts in the Maine 177 in Maine throughout the whole state Poland is ranked 19th so they're in the bottom third does that mean they have horrible teaches and the curriculum all that no you know why they're in the bottom third here's why and this is going to feed into my third reason why you probably don't want to live in Portland Main but the second reason is the school system this is right from Portland's own school systems website 34% of enrollment in the Portland school system speak 60 different languages according to the Federation of American Immigration Reform essentially Portland Maine has become a migrant uh preferred migrant Hub this means that if you're teaching in the Portland school district and you got to help people who don't speak our language children that don't speak our language one of those 60 learn be educated I I can't imagine I can't imagine with the you know maybe we need to come up with a universal language I guess sign language I guess kind of be Universal but maybe we need to come up with a universal language cuz I couldn't imagine being a teacher in this school district trying to trying to trying to teach in the Portland School District when 34% of the en in of the enrollment is um speak 60 different languages so why is Portland Maine one of the reasons why Portland Main is ranked in the bottom third I got to believe that's one of the reasons now what's interesting is if you go to the next city up that borders Portland Main which is fth fouth is 11th if you go to the city below Portland which is Scaro the town right that borders Portland Scaro is 19th if you go to kind of east south right so you got Scaro and you got Cape Elizabeth there's a little Nook in there if you're looking at Portland down to the right Cape Elizabeth Cape Elizabeth is third if you go one town up from fouth we just skip over one town from Portland to fouth to yth yth is eighth but yet Portland is 119th what tell what that tells me is a lot of people aren't living in Portland they're living in these other communities where there obviously those these communities there's definitely more fluence in there and there's definitely some pretty nice houses much spread out but they don't have all the hustle and bustle and their schools are all ranked in the in the you know top 20 with Scaro being 19th so the public school system in my opinion in Poland is a big con and I have it as number two behind housing prices um in Portland main number three and again guys not trying to get political I'm just stating facts I'm going to read this as it's written and then I'll tell you what I mean by it Maine currently does not have any cities that are forly designated as sanctuary cities however Portland Main has a policy in place that restricts law enforcement from asking about immigration status as well as from honoring most Det Raines from immigration in custom enforcement or ice the policy also prohibits local law enforcement agencies from working with the federal immigration authorities to investigate or enforce get it or enforce immigration Federal immigration laws what's the point of having a country if we're not going to enforce its laws so remember I said how essentially Portland Main has become a preferred migrant Hub well that's because Portland does not enforce our immigration policies now we've been hearing about this a lot obviously down south it's starting to happen up north too coming over the Canadian border especially in Vermont New York and some of those spaces in New Hampshire but even a little B in Maine but guys it's their own doing right if you're going to allow people that are undocumented or people who are immigrants that have are here illegally or if you're going to allow no enforcement from ice or documentation or anything like that and then you're going to put these kids into the public school system which yours and mine's tax dollars are paying for them well in this case Portlands are because the cities are paid you know school districts are paid by the cities they live in but there is money that goes to the the Department of Education which comes out of our state taxes you're going to get 34% of enrollment in pment school speaking 60 different languages you're going to have these challenges because it just doesn't make sense you're going to ruin and I'm not saying people are bad in general but if we don't have laws and we don't force them and we're trying to change the culture of this country to something different it's not working it's just not working and Portland is an example of how it's not working 119th out of 177th in terms of ranked school districts God help the teachers and all the educators are in Portland Maine trying to make trying to make uh kids help kids get ahead inless life and teach them um again not a sanctuary City but might as well be because they have the same laws as sanctuary cities and again not trying to be political I'm a veteran I will say right now I definitely lean to the right I'm right moderate I'm not an extremist uh and on either side but I do believe this country has to have borders and laws and you know Maine is not Portland is not honoring that there are other ports on Main very different very different especially you get up nor that's why we have different I think we have four four uh what do you call it the uh electors College uh electoral votes right two and two and you notice that if you look in the map generally the upper part of Maine is red and the lower part right along the coast is blue and that's pretty much Portland and that's why um so number three Sanctuary not Sanctuary but still enforces the same laws number four again guys I'm a human it's all about helping humans but the unh housed or the homeless is a big problem in Portland and Portland's waking up to the fact that it's been a problem most of them now they found houses for them or at least shelters there's been a lot that money has gone into this um but there's still a problem there was a problem when you when you're driving into Portland Main let's say you're not from here and you're driving into Portland Maine or you want to visit it and one of the gateways coming in is full of tents and trash and you know people that are just down luck or into drugs or of mental health issues it's not a good look it's just not a good look especially when it's a major Gateway coming into Poland um there used to be these uh deing Oaks Park was a big Park in Portland full of uh full of the unhoused and Tents and then they moved them they all moved to another Park kind of coming into Commercial Street and downtown Portland off the interstate just the first thing you see not a good luck now a lot of them have been moved and guys I'm not beating up on the unhoused there's mental health in this country and for some reason it's getting worse and the prices of homes and the prices to live in this country have just skyrocketed and a lot of people have been left behind I mean all of us were probably two or three catastrophes away from being unhoused ourselves but that being said I mean something had to be done and they're starting to do it right but it's not a good look you know they used to have tents you used to have encampments in the parking lots B around these buildings in the sidewalks and again I'm not trying to make lie of the situation everybody deserves a chance but you can't have a small there's about 4,000 5,000 of them you can't have a small populace like that ruining everything for the rest right you just can't um and it's not a good look and I think Poland's WIS up to the fact they're trying to do something about it so much so that they created what is called an encampment crisis response team and they're responsible for identifying documenting and then acquiring availability to either buy or put people in homes matching them and then helping them move so they've done they're moving down a direction helping these unhoused you can't just turn a blind eye to it but the unhoused is a problem imagine being unhoused in Maine or any of these cold weather states in the winter it's not it's not good now again mental health drug abuse some of these people aren in house just because they can't afford the rents they can't afford to live in Maine or they can't afford to live in Portland because you know you're talking rents that are like3 $4,000 a month rivaling Boston again we're talking Maine folks we're also talking sounds like greed um in my opinion but you know um I'm trying not to be political cuz if we want to have a political discussion we can have one um but this isn't about this channel isn't about that so the unhoused probably the number four reason why uh I would not want to live in Poland if I had a choice and I used to live in Portland I don't live there anymore been a while and then number five and it's a pro and a con right the tourism tourism is great right 11.9 million people came to me I think I said a number ear earlier that was lest but I have it right here 11.9 million people came to Main in 2022 I think or is it 20 yeah this is 2022 we don't have the 2023 numbers yet guys that's 8 and 1 half times the size of the total populace of the state of Main and a lot of those people go to Portland because it's such a hub for restaurants and things to do right so I would not want to be living in Portland Main when tour season hits cuz you can't even move you can't even walk around forget about driving around it's just horrendous there's people everywhere hence restaurants poping up up it's one of the best foodie places in the country cuz there's nothing you can't find that you'd love to eat there but and the tourism feeds it and it's a good thing but a bad thing especially if you live there because it's crazy and coupled with that parking and getting around I don't know what these people do that live there in apartments and stuff that live there if they don't have dedicated parking they got to park in the street when it snows and the city throws out a snow band a No Parking band is a snowband you have to get your cars off the street so it can be loud I don't know what some of these people do cuz where do they go where do they Park their cars do they do they take their vehicles and go down to another town and then catch on Uber or a lift or something back to their apartment I don't know what they do I got to imagine if there's a lot of them it gets expensive a lot of parking bands it gets expensive if you got to move your car all the time it's just there's so much there's so many much so much vehicles and so much so many people and then I've heard the argument well don't own a vehicle and you know what I'm not against that if you live where you work or vice versa if you have everything around you that you need then maybe you don't need a car but in general that's not main you pretty much need a car anywhere you go in Maine very few communities Portland's probably one of them you're going to find everything you need and you can walk or take transit local Transit um um Central Transit or even a bicycle or something to it because Maine is a spread out spread out State and you know I couldn't without a vehicle number one being in real estate I definitely couldn't be without a vehicle but number two everything that I do doesn't just revolve around where I live so um Maine is not not there yet but you know parking and all the other vehicles and then the tourists guys I wouldn't want to live there I just wouldn't want to live there don't mean to beat up on your Poland main I'm sure you can find videos of why po man is so great maybe it is for some people it wouldn't be for me and I think if you like this channel you subscribe to this channel maybe we have the same type of thinking or we align in some of our beliefs you're not going to want to live there either so um guys those are the cons there's pretty there's probably a lot more cons and a lot more Pros I mean uh these are kind of I tried to keep it down to five on both sides but Portland Main great place to visit great place to have eat great place to see things great place to experience shows great place to have drinks great place to great place to uh understand the historical Scenic side of of of Portland but living there not for me and probably not for you but you know it's our choice um guys again this channel is really here to help you stay informed of Maine what it's like to live here in Maine um what the housing Market's doing in Maine to help you make informed decisions in case one day again I like I said in my opening dialogue whether it's 6 months 6 weeks 6 days maybe sometime down in the down the future you want to make a move to Maine you know I would hope you would encourage I would encourage you to reach out to us so we're here to help if you're looking to sell in Maine we we help a lot of those people too we help a lot of people sell their property here in Maine and either downsize upsize leave here in the winter time to be a snowbird somewhere else and warm and then come back uh we do it all the time guys we get lots of calls lots of texts and lots of emails wanting us to help them I just uh I just got a house on the contract today or actually last night for a couple that I met off YouTube off this channel that reached out to me and said hey can you help us we moving to Maine were being relocated up here took them on video couldn't they couldn't be here did video tours for them for them went back and forth in a few houses told them my recommendations finally found a house that that they liked got it uh negotiated it's under contract and inspections and all that coming up hopefully we get it to close hopefully it's not crazy anything crazy that comes up in the inspections it's a VA loan too which are harder to do um because uh VA VA loans are more or the appraisal is a little bit more stricter than a conventional loan and you know VA loans you don't have to put money down so just as an example guys we do this all the time I got another I got another uh another individual that came to me through this channel just couple weeks ago that wants me to sell his house and he's in Bangor and I'm in bitterford that's three hours away but I got partners and teams all over this all over the state that work with me and I work with them if they're not right here in kind of Central and Southern Maine and we do this all the time guys so if you want to know more about Maine or you want to learn about what it takes to move here or sell here or invest here though then the information in the comments below I'll flash it up on the screen in case you're watching this on the TV and I hope uh that you have a great week uh it's early on the week towards the end of February I'll get this content out soon and you guys stay safe take care warmer weather's coming if you're up here have a great day guys Scott over and out byebye

Channel: Live Life in Maine

Views: 2,572

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Id: TYsIGTQ4Amg

Length: 34min 22sec (2062 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2024