Belgrade Lakes, Winthrop, Oakland and China real estate: year round and second home loans

The Belgrade Lakes are seven lakes joined by streams: East Pond, North Pond, McGrath Pond, Salmon Lake, Great Pond, Long Pond and Messalonskee Lake. The water works its way down the chain and leaves through Messalonskee Stream to the Kennebec River at Waterville. Great Pond is the biggest of the seven, about fifteen miles north of Augusta, and it is the lake that gave playwright Ernest Thompson his summers as a boy and the idea for On Golden Pond. In summer the mail still goes around Great Pond by boat, dock to dock, on a water route that has run for generations.

Belgrade Lakes village is the small strip of Route 27 squeezed between Great Pond and Long Pond, with the lakes on both sides of Main Street. Long Pond is shared by Belgrade, Rome and Mount Vernon. If you are searching Belgrade Lakes homes for sale or Long Pond real estate, you are looking at the busiest part of the chain in July and some of the quietest roads in February.

Messalonskee Lake, which many locals still call Snow Pond, is the last lake in the chain and runs about nine miles through Belgrade, Sidney and Oakland. Its shore holds a mix of year round houses and seasonal places. Oakland sits at the outlet, about four miles west of Waterville, and it also takes in McGrath Pond, Salmon Lake and part of East Pond. Messalonskee Stream once powered the mills that made Oakland known for axes and scythes. Today a lot of people shopping homes for sale in Oakland Maine want a short drive to Waterville and a lake within a few minutes of the house.

China Lake has two basins joined at The Narrows. The long East Basin runs north and south beside Route 202, with China Village at its north end and South China where Route 3 crosses near the south end. The rounder West Basin, which reaches into Vassalboro, is mostly undeveloped because it supplies drinking water to Waterville and the towns around it, and the water district has owned most of that shoreline for over a century. So when you browse China Maine homes for sale on the water, nearly all of them are on the East Basin, since only a short stretch of the West Basin shore is privately owned.

Winthrop is west of Augusta on Route 202, and it is a town built around lakes. Maranacook Lake stretches north from downtown into Readfield. Its outlet, Mill Stream, runs through the middle of town into Annabessacook Lake, which drains on toward Cobbosseecontee. Cobbossee is the largest lake in the Winthrop Lakes Region, shared with Monmouth, Manchester, Litchfield and West Gardiner, and the small lighthouse on Ladies Delight Island, built in 1908, still marks the way for boaters. Homes for sale in Winthrop Maine range from village houses within walking distance of Main Street to camps on the smaller ponds out back.

My name is Travis Penny. I hold mortgage broker licenses in Maine and Florida, I shop your loan across several lenders rather than working for a single bank, and you have my cell from the first call until the keys change hands. I started in 2004 and I'm still here.

Many buyers in Winthrop, Oakland, Belgrade and China are not buying a getaway at all. They want to live on or near the water and commute to Augusta, Waterville or Lewiston. When the house will be your main home, more loan types come into play. Depending on you and the property, I may compare a conventional loan with an FHA loan in Maine, a Maine VA loan if you have served, or a USDA loan where the address and your household income fit that program. If this is your first purchase, start with my Maine first time home buyer guide, and if you are looking in the city itself, see my Augusta home loans page.

If it will not be your main home, the next question is who uses it. A second home loan is meant for a one unit place your own household spends time in during part of the year. Renting out a few weeks when you are not there usually works. It no longer fits once a property manager or rental program takes control of the calendar.

Income you hope to earn by renting a second home generally will not count toward qualifying, so the numbers have to work on your own income. If what you really intend is to book a Long Pond or Messalonskee cottage to vacationers all summer and lean on that money, I would treat it as an investment purchase. That takes a bigger down payment, and with some programs the rent can help you qualify. One route is a DSCR loan, which is for investment property only; I offer DSCR in 38 states, and the details are on my DSCR investor loans page. Each town sets its own short term rental rules, so read them before counting on rental income.

Plenty of lake houses here sit on a camp road shared with neighbors and maintained by a road association. When that road is kept up and plowed all winter, the house is usually the easier case, though FHA, VA and USDA have their own road rules and each lender has its own. Expect the lender to ask who is responsible for upkeep and who covers the plow bill, so request the association bylaws, a maintenance agreement or whatever paperwork exists from the seller up front. Homes on a seasonal road, and island cottages you can only reach by boat, are harder to finance and depend on the lender and the appraisal. Call me with the address and I'll check it.

A lot of the older places on Great Pond, Long Pond and the Winthrop lakes started as summer camps, and many have since been winterized into full time homes. Standard mortgage guidelines expect a house you could live in through every season, with a permanent heat source, working utilities and access in winter, which makes a cottage that still shuts down every fall difficult to place in a standard loan. A converted camp that truly works year round is a different story. Ask the seller what was done to winterize it and when. Wells, lake water lines, septic systems and the shoreland rules each get their own section in my camp and lake house financing guide, so I won't repeat them here.

If the house is on low ground near Messalonskee Stream in Oakland, Mill Stream in Winthrop or the outlet of one of the ponds, pull up the flood map for it before you make an offer. Homes inside a FEMA special flood hazard area must carry flood insurance as a lender requirement, and that premium gets added to what you pay every month. Get a quote on that exact address first.

Frontage, how steep the walk down is, which way it faces and the condition of the dock can move value more than the house itself. Because Augusta and Waterville are close, the appraiser usually has more year round sales nearby to work with than on a remote northern lake, but waterfront sales on one particular pond can still be thin, and the appraiser may have to compare across the chain. That can add a little time. It rarely stops a loan, and I build it into the schedule.

Sometimes the lot is the real value and the camp on it is near the end of its life. With a conventional Maine one time close construction loan, buying the lot, building the house and setting up the long term mortgage all happen at a single closing. That conventional option is available whether the new house will be where you live, a second home or a rental investment; attached condos do not qualify. The VA version only covers a house you will live in as your main residence. If you would rather buy the lot now and build later, see land loans in Maine.

If you own the home you live in, in Maine or Florida, its equity can help pay for a place on the lakes. Borrowing against it through a Maine HELOC, a Florida HELOC or a lump sum home equity loan can fund your down payment, and on a small cottage it could pay for everything. I'll put those numbers beside a regular purchase mortgage so you can decide.

Later on, after some time owning the cottage, certain second mortgage programs might allow you to draw on its equity too. Not everyone will qualify.

Lots of Belgrade and Winthrop buyers grew up summering here and now live somewhere else. That is fine. We can do every step over the phone, by text and through email. The property itself has to sit in Maine, since my licenses cover Maine and Florida only. My vacation home financing guide covers second homes statewide.

• A link to the listing, or just the street address
• Your plan: live there, use it part of the year, or rent it out most of the time
• What kind of road it sits on: town maintained, association camp road, or seasonal
• What heats the house and whether the plumbing stays on in winter
• How much you plan to put down and the source of those funds
• Your latest pay stubs and tax returns, or a short note on how your income works if you are self employed

Once I have that, I'll point you to the loan that fits and mention anything I think could hold up the appraisal. Have a particular house in mind? Contact me.