removal is probably best.. and cheapest in the long run ... i would just have them cut the stump flush to the ground ...

on that sized lot .. i would probably add a couple flowering smaller trees.. you dont mention where you are.. so.. fwiw ... a red bud ... and maybe a magnolia tree type.. for some spring wow factor ... this would be mother earth plus one ...

planting in the exact spot will be hard to dig a hole .. so plan at least 6 feet in some other direction ..

the base idea for me.. is why pay 500 to a 100 dollars to have someone come clean it up... and then a few years later.. the rest fails .. and then you spend the same again to remove it ...

pay once for removal ... and spend some of your savings for the new plants ...

maple makes great fire wood if you have a fireplace ...

ken

ps: and imagine all those leaves you wont have to clean up ...

This is why people like me call these "junk trees". Left to their own devices, in many of North America's climate regions, they are usually short lived and very prone to storm damage. I've spent at least 30K in the past 15 years on tree services, largely dealing with these dogs (A. rubrum and A. saccharinum) that were planted or worse, allowed to grow from seedlings, by prior owners.* Probably 40% cleaning up storm damage, and the balance preemptively removing them to avoid future storm damage destroying valuable plants. The sugar maple (A. saccharum) is purported less awful, but I have no experience with them as they don't seem native to my my ecoregion in Maryland.

If for some reason people want them in their yards, they should have a plan for very thoughtful pruning at every stage of the tree's development. Something that almost never happens. Maybe at the extremes of their natural ranges like Vermont, there is a case for planting them. Not here. And yet I bet 1/4 of shade trees planted in the Mid-Atlantic or Delmarva are a red maple. As some other threads have recently noted though, the country is becoming so dumbed down, it might be a lucky thing people even understand to plant shade trees anymore LOL. I myself have started to notice this "don't plant anything in a yard, and remove any trees" trend. Or the amusing trend of people cutting down the only nice tree they had in their yard, and leaving crap like red maples!

Another thing I've noticed is some kind of dieback becoming more common. Not sure though if it's a disease in every case - sometimes it definitely appears to be - or just generalized stupidity.

* not even counting small to mid-sized ones I handled myself, surely saving myself at least 5-6K. The $350 investment in a Stihl back in 2007 was a good one!

Have the secondary branch (branch on right in pic) cut off properly at branch collar. The crack will remain, but under much less bending stress.

This is a diy job even for me! Study how to make the cut first. Maples are tough so chances are good it will heal. If not snd you decide to either remove more or take down the whole tree, again it’s a diy job in my world. I spend about 5k a year on tree work but bit got things like this. My spouse and I are 66 snd 70.

If it were my tree, I'd remove and replace it with another. If you like red maples there are many newer cultivars that are disease resistant and relatively fast growers with strong structure. Take a look at the Red Pointe Maple and other cultivar PDF Data sheets here at J. Frank Schmidt:

Scroll down to Acer rubrum(Red maples)

https://www.jfschmidt.com/pdfs/a-b.html

Red Point

https://www.jfschmidt.com/pdfs/redpointemaple.pdf

Regards,

Will

We had a similar thing happen with a honey locust tree recently. There was a large, four-five foot crack which ran down the leader about halfway up. The crack was so large you could see through it. We had a tree service remove the branch this morning. Although it doesn't look too bad, I am hoping that suckers will grow up along the branches to hide the open space.

We have had a lot of warm, dry weather and some recent torrential downpours here in my neck of the Northeast. I wouldn't be surprised if that may have contributed to the crack in our tree.