About the agency
Harbourline Property is an estate agency in Portland, Maine. It works to a written scope for a confirmed fee, it puts a range rather than a promise on a house, and it says the unwelcome part at the appraisal rather than three months later.
The agency came out of a habit rather than a plan: writing down what a house was likely to fetch, and writing down beside it the reason for thinking so. Portland is small enough that those reasons can be checked by anybody — the terrace two streets over that went in nine days, the near-identical duplex that sat through a whole winter because of the shared driveway, the peninsula street where parking decides the price. Once a figure is set against sales that other people can look up, the conversation stops being about who sounds most confident and starts being about evidence.
Everything else is built on that first visit. A market appraisal takes 45 to 60 minutes at the property and carries no charge, which is deliberate: an opinion of value paid for by the instruction it wins is not an opinion worth having. Every room is measured or checked against the plan; the roof, the windows, the heating and any sign of damp are looked at rather than taken on trust; the aspect, the parking, the flood zone and the catchment are written down because those are what buyers ask about first. What the owner receives is a range with the comparable sales it rests on attached. If work follows, its scope is described in plain terms and its fee is confirmed in writing before a photographer is booked or a board goes up, and the work is then reported against that agreement rather than against a market the agency does not control.
Three operating principles
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The appraisal is free so that it can be honest
A valuation paid for by the instruction it wins is not a valuation. The visit costs nothing, so the range can be the range.
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Scope and fee in writing, before the work
Nothing starts until the scope is written down and its fee confirmed. A scope that changes is re-agreed, never absorbed in silence.
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No promised price and no promised date
The agency states what it will do. It does not state what a buyer will pay or when one will appear, because neither is in its gift.
What happens, in four steps
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Step 1
The appraisal is booked
Forty-five to sixty minutes at the property, at no charge, at a time the household picks.
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Step 2
A range is written down
A range rather than a single figure, with the comparable sales it rests on set out beside it.
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Step 3
The scope and the fee are confirmed
In writing, before anything is booked or advertised, including what would change the fee.
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Step 4
The work is reported against the agreement
Viewings, offers and feedback as they happen, measured against the scope that was agreed and nothing else.
What a seller may not want to hear
Part of this work is saying things an owner would rather not be told. A house that backs on to the ramp is worth less because it backs on to the ramp. A kitchen fitted last year rarely returns what it cost. An asking price set above the range draws fewer viewings rather than better ones, and the reduction that follows is read by the market as a house nobody wanted. Harbourline Property says all of that at the appraisal, and it does not draft contracts, survey a building or give tax or legal advice — where a question needs any of those, the agency says so and names the kind of professional it belongs to. An owner who wants a higher number than the evidence supports is free to take the instruction elsewhere; the agency would rather lose it than list at a figure it cannot argue for.
Start with the market appraisal
It carries no charge and takes 45 to 60 minutes at the property, and it ends either with a written range and a scope worth agreeing or with a plain statement that none of the six services fits.