When Steve Resendes and his wife were compiling photos to include in the listing for their 2,070-square-foot vacation home on Verona Island, they added two pictures of deer in their yard among shots of the interior and exterior of the house.
Resendes hoped the photos would appeal to fellow animal lovers and paint a picture of the 8-acre property the waterfront home sits on, as the area is overpopulated with deer and frequented by other wildlife, including turkeys and bald eagles, he said.
“Part of what attracted us to that area was the abundance of wildlife,” said Resendes, who lives in Massachusetts. “I think when you’re thinking about the Maine experience, you think about a cabin in the woods with wildlife nearby.”
Resendes is among many sellers and real estate agents who include photos of wild animals — either from a game camera or photos the sellers captured — in current online property listings. The practice is one method sellers use to make their Maine homes stand out and attract buyers who may come from urban areas and are looking for a more rural place to call home.
Shots of wildlife can be found in a wide variety of properties for sale across the state. Some property listings, like this $225,000 hunting camp in Skowhegan, show game camera footage of deer and a bobcat just outside the door.
Other homes, such as this 10,600-square-foot Cape Elizabeth home on the market for nearly $4 million, features a picture of a doe spotted on the land among the photos of the home’s ornate interior.
Like frontage on a body of water or immediate access to snowmobile trails, having wildlife nearby and the photos to prove it can make a home a “lifestyle property,” according to Matthew Pouliot, broker and owner of Augusta-based Pouliot Real Estate.
Some people relocate to Maine because they want plenty of land and access to the wildlife that come with it.
Wildlife can appeal to animal lovers like Resendes who simply enjoy watching them roam through their yard. But photos of deer, moose, turkey or other game also can entice avid hunters who might like the idea of not needing to go far to access a good hunting spot, Pouliot said.
“Maine is very unique in that we have open-access land, so if land is not posted or marked otherwise, it’s legal to hunt on that land,” Pouliot said. “A lot of the time, people are looking to buy properties so that they can hunt and fish on them.”
Real estate agents also are somewhat limited in what pictures they can include in property listings as they should only show what’s on property itself and what amenities it offers.
“If there’s a beach down the road, we generally don’t go down the road and take a picture of the beach because that’s not on the property and could be misleading,” Pouliot said. “But, if there’s active sightings of wildlife on the property, we want people to know that.”