Around Maine there are about 19,000 residential properties for sale, and according to the Maine Association of Realtors, three percent of them can be classified as high end. That means about 650 homes are on the market for $1 million or more. Not surprisingly, because of the economic recession, about half the number of $1 million-plus homes sold last year compared with 2007, prompting realtors to become a lot more creative.

Selling a house in this economic climate entails a lot more work than it used to. And it seems that the higher up the market you go, the more creative you have to be to find a buyer.

"The days of throwing up a sign and hoping for the best just listing a property are over," says Tom Landry, who is with Benchmark Real Estate in Portland. He says his job selling high end real estate has changed a lot in the last three years. Before the recession took hold, a certain volume of properties would sell every three or four months. Now, he says, you don't just list a property for sale -- you launch it onto the market like a new product.

One way of doing this is by using indirect marketing -- offering properties up as venues for private events or photoshoots to raise their profiles.

It's a strategy that's been employed to market this oceanfront property in Portland's fashionable Munjoy Hill Neighborhood. "When we first launched this property we contacted some of the local magazines to offer the property up as a destination photoshoot area for them, if they had celebrities in town, etcetera," Landry says. "We were actually taken up on that by Portland Magazine and they used the roof on their cover shot, and they overlaid one of their celebrities onto that cover shot."

In this case, the celebrity in question was reality TV star Carson Kressley from Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. The property he was unknowingly promoting includes three above-ground condos, which are listed separately at between $699,000 and $775,000. Landry says there's also the option to purchase the entire building at a price of $2.2 million -- more than a million less than it would have sold for three years ago, he adds.

"And that's part of what we're trying to do differently as well -- we're trying to have the property marketed and listed for sale online in as many ways as possible, so you have more opportunities to hit a buyer, versus just listing the entire building," Landry says.

Whether you're buying the entire building or just one of the condos, spectacular views of Casco Bay are guaranteed, since all condo owners have trap door access to a roof terrace.

"Everything is location, location, location, and you can't get a better location than this," says Wally Geyer, the co-owner of this particular property. "Everybody would like to have this but most people can't afford it."

Geyer and his business partner, Tony Salem, have bought and renovated a number of Victorian-era properties in Portland's East End over the years. They normally sell them quickly and move on, but with the slowness of the current market, they're having to rent out the condos in this building.

"The market up here was top notch a few years ago -- you know, you could get anything you asked," Geyer says. "With economy gone things are different. But you've just got to wait until the right person comes along that's willing to buy."

Open houses are also used much more than they used to be, says Tom Landry, and not just as a way to attract potential buyers. Landry and other high end realtors frequently pull out all the stops at these events to encourage brokers to attend in the hope they can put them in touch with a buyer.

Refreshments are usually provided, but so are free gifts, such as dinner at a local restaurant. Even more persuasive, says broker Mark Small, are the financial incentives. "We're seeing higher co-broke percentages offered, or a flat bonus fee for selling a property," says Small, who's a broker with Remax by the Bay. "Maybe they'll offer a $1,500 bonus and that might entice a broker to bring a buyer in that direction."

Realtors are also spending thousands on other marketing costs not required a few years back. For example, Benchmark Real Estate recently spent about $5,000 sending postcards out to targeted property owners in the greater Portland area.

Landry says many high end buyers are not consciously on the hunt for a new property -- they have to be enticed. "So if we can hit them in their own comfort zone to come here quietly, then they can see where they're going to be moving to."

Landry hopes local resident Sarah Helming will turn out to fit that demographic. She dropped into the open house after receiving a promotional email. "So this looked really fun and very kind of open to anybody that wanted to come by, so I thought it would be great to check it out," Helming says. "I love the East End. I'm not really quite looking but I'm always intrigued and love to keep my eye on the market."

And according to Kim Swan, a high end realtor in Bar Harbor, it's a market which is just starting to rebound. "Buyers have been waiting for the right time and I think they saw that in 2009," Swan says. "I think in 2010 they're saying, ok, it's on its way back up, we've got to jump in now."

According to figures from the Maine Real Estate Information Service, 62 high end properties have been sold in Maine so far this year, with another 20 under contract -- something that Swan says puts 2010 on track to be a better year than 2009, when 99 properties were sold.

Photos courtesy of Benchmark Real Estate.