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Rob Barber, CEO of Attom
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Updated: 1 hour ago
Buy low, sell higher: Despite Maine’s pricey housing market, ‘flippers’ are turning bargains into profits
Photo / Jim Neuger
Laurel LaBauve at work on the balustrade of a house she is renovating on Haven Road in South Portland.
Photo / Jim Neuger
Laurel LaBauve in the newly finished kitchen of the house on Haven Road.
Inside the bluish-gray Second Empire-house crowned by a sloping mansard roof, Laurel LaBauve is putting the finishing touches on a fixer-upper she bought for $380,000 last June and spent nine months renovating.
In the second week of March when this reporter first visited, a worker was stacking a washing machine and dryer in the upstairs bathroom and LaBauve was mapping out final staging plans.
Two weeks later, the South Portland house built in 1880 was sparkling with brand-new everything, including a gas fireplace in the living room, walnut kitchen counter, built-in bookshelves and energy-efficient heat pumps.
“I love reimagining these old houses so that we keep all of the antique charm, but make it work for today’s lifestyle,” LaBauve says.
Switching hats from general contractor, designer and project manager to self-employed real estate agent, LaBauve listed the new-and-improved dwelling for $799,000. It was touted as a “rare opportunity to own a historic home with the grandeur of a bygone era.” Hours before her first showing, she installs a microwave oven, removes cardboard boxes and adjusts a small picture in the enclosed porch knocked slightly askew by a crew member.
“It happens every time they slam the door,” says LaBauve, a retired corporate executive with a mechanical engineering background who now devotes her time to buying, fixing and reselling homes — what is more commonly known as flipping.
For her 22nd project, there were unanticipated expenses for siding and custom-milled flooring, along with a sump pump she purchased when a winter storm flooded the basement. She’s staged the finished half as a study-meets-playroom oasis, leaving the unfinished part (no staging necessary) for storage.
Such are the ups and downs of flipping houses, an activity that has gained a higher profile in Maine and nationwide thanks in part to the popularity of reality television shows including Magnolia Network’s “Maine Cabin Masters” set in the Pine Tree State.
In the non-televised world, there are still bargains to be found and profits to be made even in Maine, where the 9% year-on-year increase in the median home sale price — to $381,500 in February — outpaced the 3.7% jump nationwide.
Adventures in critter-clearing
In Maine and elsewhere, flippers range from those out to make a quick buck with superficial changes, to build-and-design purists who see themselves as preservationists.
“You’ve got the guys who do just the pigs with lipstick product, and then there’s the people who do a really incredible job because they’re building a reputation and a brand,” says Portside Real Estate Group’s Kathy Harris, a Brunswick-based broker who puts down the difference to capital costs.
“If they’re using borrowed money, they try to get through it as quickly as possible because everyday costs them more money,” she says. “The good ones, to me, are doing it out of pocket.”
For some flippers already working in real estate, the DIY experience has educational appeal.
One example is Yulia Glasgow, a Scarborough-based associate broker with Maine Real Estate Co. who had quite the initiation on a Buxton project in 2021.
“It was a real fixer-upper, but we didn’t know how bad it was when we opened the walls,” she recalls. “We thought it would be cosmetic and we would add another bathroom.” That changed when they found a bunch of live mice. Making light of the situation, Glasgow playfully informed the critters they were being evicted as her husband flung them out the window. They also found at least one unfortunate rodent fried to death from chewing on wires.
Unscarred by their adventures in critter-clearing, Glasgow and her husband embarked on a second project that was “too much work for their liking” and which they sold unfinished. She learned from both experiences, and now when she shows a property can see right away whether someone did quality work or cut corners. Still intrigued by flipping, Glasgow says, “I will absolutely do it again, and I am always on the lookout for a good opportunity.”
So is her colleague Adam Parent, a more experienced flipper who once encountered “vicious” bats he had to pay a wildlife expert to remove: “It’s not a fun experience,” he says.
Portside’s Harris has seen — and smelled — much worse at run-down houses her flipper clients have bought, from cat urine to stale smoke and dead animals “in various stages of grossness.”
Bigger picture
Nationwide in 2024, close to 300,000 single-family homes and condos were flipped, representing around 7.6% of total home sales, according to Attom, a California-based land, property data and real estate analytics firm. The percentage was lower in Maine at 5.5%, or 1,117 houses flipped last year. That puts Maine in at No. 34 among the 50 states.
“This suggests either relatively fewer opportunities for investors or that they are shying away from low profits,” says Rob Barber, Attom’s CEO.
While profit margins in Maine ranked in the middle of the pack, the average gross return on investment — before accounting for mortgage interest, property taxes, renovation expenses and other costs – inched up to 30.9% in 2023 from 29.4% in 2023 for 1,179 flips.
The increase in the average number of days to flip a house in Maine was more pronounced, from 173 days in 2023 to 184 days last year. Although renovation costs are not covered in the report, experts say they typically range from 20% to 33% of a property’s after-repair value.
Robert O’Brien, a Portland-based senior housing specialist with Camoin Associates, says that Maine’s old housing stock makes the state fertile ground for flipping, especially in inland areas.
DIYers in Lisbon Falls
In the Androscoggin County town of Lisbon Falls, Jennifer Larochelle is a beauty salon owner who beautifies houses as a side hustle.
“I love the before and after, but I really like the process,” says Larochelle, who’s been refurbishing houses since childhood when she helped her parents do so for rentals.
Today, she spends evenings and weekends spiffing up dilapidated homes she buys in cash, including some in foreclosure auctions. Working with a hired crew, she does a lot of the demo work herself as well as interior design.
“I would do it full time if I could, but I haven’t yet figured out how to transition,” she says. “Maybe when I’m retired from hair.”
While most projects take about three months, finding contractors is a growing challenge.
“Everybody is charging an arm and a leg for not good quality work, but I’m a position where I can try somebody new out,” Larochelle says.
Photo / Tim Greenway
Jennifer Hogan Larochelle, owner of the Beauty Box in Lisbon Falls, also renovates houses.
Elsewhere in the town, Patrick Bolduc, a logging business owner and his wife, who works in IT at MaineHealth, also use for free time to flip houses. That means working evenings and weekends, and during “mud season” when it’s off-season for logging.
“There’s no retirement working in the woods, so this is our retirement plan,” says Bolduc, who says the couple has bought, fixed up and sold about a dozen homes. Though most are single-family abodes purchased at auction, one was a duplex they kept as a duplex.
The couple, frequently aided by family members including their son who’s a plumber, started with a red-white-and-blue house they bought at auction and nicknamed the “Clown House.”
Upon entering for the first time, they discovered that the previous owners had left everything behind – “even the guy’s shoes and stuff,” Bolduc says. “They walked out the door and never came back.”
In another house where the corpse of the previous owner had apparently lain for a few weeks after he died, there were “tunnels” of hoarded possessions to dig through and a bathroom full of two-foot-thick piles of cat manure. In most cases, Portside’s Harris has a buyer lined up before the renovation is even done. With high interest rates and other costs spooking some buyers, Bolduc finds that it now takes longer to sell though he avoids setting any deadlines.
Photo / Tim Greenway
Tara and Patrick Bolduc with their granddaughter Bella Lukeski at a house on Ridge Road in Lisbon that they are fixing up to sell
Flipping cabins
If flipping houses sounds daunting, then try making a living upgrading rustic camps for a worldwide audience like the Kennebec Cabin Co. crew on “Maine Cabin Masters.”
Carpenter Ryan Eldridge, who stars in the show with his wife, designer Ashley Morrill, and Ashley’s brother, Chase Morrill, along with other crew members, have done around 200 makeovers. While they do most of those for others, a special episode this season features the “ultimate off-grid renovation” of a private island the married couple bought.
“I’ve never believed in the stock market, but I’ve always invested in houses because I’ve had the tools and resources to do that,” Eldridge says. “If you buy a piece of property and work on it, you’re going to make money — maybe not right away, maybe not until 10 years later, but I always tell myself I’m going to get paid someday.”
Every cabin redo takes around eight to 12 weeks, sometimes with surprise cameos like the snake that rattled Eldridge. Luckily for him, his wife was a picture of calm “holding the darn thing.”
Rogue reptiles aside, the crew come across “all kinds of cool stuff” during demos.
“We’ve found balls of corn cobs, we found a whole basement of wooden forks … love letters from the Maine State Prison to a young lady in Brunswick, you name it,” recalls Eldridge, who especially likes finding old newspapers. “We really love to see what the price of stuff was in the ‘40s and ‘50s. It’s pretty mind-blowing.”
Besides sparking interest in DIY home makeovers, the show has boosted Vacationland’s popularity as a place to buy homes to renovate — which Eldridge blames in part for driving up real estate prices.
His tip for flippers: “I was told to buy the worst place in the nicest neighborhood you can find.”
Flipping the script in southern Maine
Meanwhile in southern Maine, renovators like Chris Low are still finding bargains to upgrade and sell at a profit. The Portland-area contractor and serial flipper bought a historic home on Munjoy Hill last July for $680,000 and spent seven months renovating with a crew.
They were still at work in late February when this journalist visited, treading carefully on a slippery snow-covered driveway to enter a house abuzz with the sounds of hammers and saws.
“We’ll be back later in the spring once the ground thaws and firms up a bit to do some exterior work,” he says a few days after closing an off-market transaction for $1.48 million.
Like Low, Maine Real Estate’s Parent prefers to stay close to home with his projects, doing business as House of Dogs LLC in homage to his pets. Recent flips include 67 Mast Hill Road in Saco, a three-bedroom Colonial home he bought for $435,000 in August 2024 and spent 90 days spiffing up with fresh paint, new flooring and updated fixtures. He listed the house for $675,000, touting it as a “move-in-ready stunner” conveniently located near shopping, dining, schools and the “stunning Maine coastline.” It sold within six days for $700,000.
“That’s just the market right now,” says Parent, with a half-dozen flips under his belt. “It’s great income, but it also gives me the opportunity to learn and use the process to better serve my clients,”
Back on Haven Road in South Portland, LaBauve looks forward to the day she can hand the key to the next owner and start planning her next endeavor.
“We saw one last week that would be a really good project,” she says, “but I can’t afford to buy the next one until I sell this one.”
That shouldn’t take long. As this article went to press, the house was already under contract.
Photo / Jim Neuger
Laurel LaBauve prepares for the first showing of a house she renovated on Haven Road in South Portland.
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