This real estate influencer puts a glamorous spin on Maine homes | Column
Bailey Pate, photographed at a property along the Saco River in Biddeford, is a real estate agent and influencer who uses social media for real estate marketing. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
Between electronic beats and video footage that dashes in and around the house, two women with long, blond hair walk in heels through the rooms, taking turns touting their real estate listing’s various attributes: five bedrooms, a fenced-in backyard, a spacious deck.
While the look and feel of the Instagram reel says “luxury,” the home itself is a sizeable but otherwise pretty standard tan Colonial in Saco with a patchy lawn and carpeted stairs — a perfectly nice Maine property, but nothing you’d see on “Selling Sunset.”
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Bailey Pate, one of the women in the video and the owner of the real estate company behind it, said she gives every house the same marketing treatment because that’s why clients come to her. And there’s no property she’s unwilling to take on.
“In my old office, they would call me ‘Deals on Wheels’ because I would only sell mobile homes,” she said.
Social media has become an important tool for marketing real estate, as a place to showcase properties with drone footage and virtual tours. Pate, 35, recognized its value earlier than most in Maine. While her competitors were still knocking on doors and making cold calls, she said, she was already at work building her brand.
Since starting Maine Real Estate Co. in 2023, Pate has more than doubled her Instagram followers, to 23,000 and counting, the second most among the state’s real estate influencers — after “The Bachelor” contestant Chelsea Roy — according to online media database FeedSpot.
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Bailey Pate is a real estate agent and influencer who uses social media for real estate marketing. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
She started making videos with her mom seven years ago, highlighting different Portland neighborhoods and local landmarks. The idea was to create content that anyone in Maine might be interested in watching. Then, if they followed her account, they might think of her if they eventually wanted to sell or buy a home. She gets messages multiple times a week that prove her strategy is working.
“That’s really my main source of business,” she said.
A Thornton Academy graduate who still lives in Saco, Pate discovered her knack for marketing while running her own residential cleaning business. Seeing how her skills would be transferable, a client suggested she get licensed to sell homes.
Pate worked for Keller Williams for several years before deciding to break out on her own. She now has 19 agents working for her Scarborough-based brokerage, voted the state’s top real estate company in last year’s Best of the 207 contest, run by Portland Media Group. Pate herself was voted best agent and is ranked by RealTrends Verified as 21st in the state for sales volume at $23 million in 2025.
In setting out to create a brand for her company, Pate wanted it to feel modern, luxurious and, foremost, different from everyone else. She started with a sleek black-and-white logo, but when she noticed others adopting the same color scheme, she began adding more neutrals to the brand’s palette.
Although her Instagram reels might seem splashier than what you usually see in Maine, the style and special effects are part of a nationwide trend that cropped up about a year ago in bigger markets, said Darren Brock, an owner of Dream Home Shots, the Maine real estate marketing firm that handles Pate’s listing media.
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“We’re a little bit behind in New England,” he said.
Dream Home Shots makes videos in the same cinematic style for other clients in Maine and New Hampshire, using drone footage and varying the speed, but the agents all distinguish themselves in different ways, Brock said. For Pate, that’s through her social media strategy.
“Her commitment to getting her clients the most exposure is definitely her thing,” he said.
And then there’s her personal style, marked by fitted dresses and perfectly coiffed waves. In Maine, professionals can get away with a more casual look, Pate said, but being polished is part of her brand.
“I don’t think it hurts to take care of yourself and present yourself professionally and show up and look your best,” she said. “Clients appreciate it as well.”
The downside of being an attractive young woman with a prominent internet presence is that, between all the positivity and support from her followers, are some ruder reactions to her posts, objectifying Pate and her colleagues.
She used to delete offensive comments but doesn’t bother anymore. She’s too busy selling houses.
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Tagged: Maine real estate, real estate, social media, video
Leslie Bridgers is a columnist for the Portland Press Herald, writing about Maine culture, customs and the things we notice and wonder about in our everyday lives. Originally from Connecticut, Leslie came. More by Leslie Bridgers
