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You moved somewhere because it reminded you of a time before people started moving to where you used to live…irony is absolutely dead.

On a real note, Vermont is absolutely, incredibly overpriced for housing. My house has doubled in value since I bought it a mere 9 years ago. It’s bonkers. I hope your situation gets better.

Right? I realize that now. Thanks, I appreciate the support.

Keep ya head up

Same-ish, actively looking for housing in other states. Moved here for school, stayed for the charm, totally over the stealing, break-ins, and murders. Also tax increases, rent increases, and general vibes.

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What a shitty comment.

Hey! I am in Montana too, and have been looking since 2018 in Vermont, but finally got the ok with work to make it happen in fall of ‘21. I have also given up at this point. I was turned away twice (not even allowed to look) from properties because we did not have all cash.

The greed run up is exactly what happened in Montana in the early 00s. Have you been back to MT recently? It’s basically a whole population turnover. White fundie Christian flight is real and I swear they all came here.

Hope you find your spot. No place is perfect but Vermont is pretty great. We have started looking in other areas. Kid starts kindergarten in the fall, so I don’t have the luxury of waiting out the real estate bubble.

Was in the same boat a year ago. We ended up paying too much for a POS townhouse. A year later, things are good. Might try looking for a POS that you can fix up. I think my family was in exactly the right place at the right time too.

I was in a pretty similar spot when I moved to VT 9 years ago. After looking at housing prices it seemed like we would never own, or have to move somewhere else. Then my partner found an ad from Habitat for Humanity. I didn't think we would qualify, but we did. I don't know what Habitat looks like down in Middlebury, but I would reach out to them see if they have any projects in your area.

You were tired of people moving to your state so you decided to move to another state

Honestly look down south, there’s some great areas. Fuck renting the rest of your life.

Seriously like OP is not the wealthy out-of-stater ruining VT.

What’s your rental price range? Might be able to send you to a friend who has a rental

Vermont is not unique. We are a state populated by the members of the same human race that populates Montana, Texas or anywhere else.

To stay on your point: Vermont is much smaller then Montana and much closer to major urban areas such as Boston, New York and Montreal. We are much more susceptible to what you described as having happened to Montana's housing market; and we are having a huge issue with too much money buying up places that people need to live in.

I hope it works out for you folks wherever you end up.

Property is cheaper over the bridge in NY. Plenty of people commute to Middlebury (and Vergennes and Burlington) from Port Henry/Crown Point/Ticonderoga.

It’s not Vermont, it’s your apartment

I'm obsessed with this MCM stunner in Cornwall https://www.redfin.com/VT/Cornwall/687-VT-30-05753/home/91204166

My husband, youngest kid and myself lived in Rutland for 3 years, that was too long (2017-2020). We were lucky to take over the oldest kid's lease. Then, a year later it sold. We were lucky again to find another rental on the better side of town and more expensive. I paid them what I am currently paying for a house I purchased in NW Arkansas. It got to where businesses were closing and even trying to find decent paying work was a challenge. We finally decided to go back where life was more accommodating and cheaper cost of living. And, we have improved by leaps and bounds.

Best of luck and I pray you find the place you need to be.

Try looking into buying a fixer upper duplex. I did that (fortunately not in the current market), fixed up one half of the house to rent immediately, then worked on the half I live in.

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You are in one of the most expensive towns in the state... Look further out in the small rural towns for a house that needs fixing up.

Rutland is within an hour of Middlebury and inexpensive compared to other parts of the state.

Have your tried looking in Bristol, vergenes

This is the answer.

Shouldn't of had the baby...

Sorry I'm not taking these posts serious anymore.

You live in Middlebury, what do you expect?

you moved to one of the most expensive areas of the state outside of Chittenden county

Seems eveyone like OP comes here and wants to live in the most expensive populated area and cries when they can't find anything and would rather move back than look in cheaper areas. It's getting old.

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People that makes these posts never wanna move to a cheaper area...

We actually live in Whitehall. My husband drives to Middlebury for work.

Oh nice! I'll look into it, thanks :)

I'm glad it worked out for you in the end 😊

I have actually been wanting to live in the middle of nowhere, like back home in Montana. Don't want to live in a city. But it seems nothing is ever available except town homes.

Thank you. I guess that's one thing the two states have in common.

That would be great! Right now the very most we can probably afford is $1,500. It's almost half our monthly take home pay but that seems to be unavoidable now.

Whitehall NY? i can't imagine the housing market there is overpriced

Well what was I supposed to do? :(

Thanks

This is really unfortunate. However, people are right Middlebury is a very expensive tourist/college town. Always has been always will be. It's like Stowe but not as obnoxious.

Advice from a native that works in an overpriced tourist town (Stowe): If you want to buy or rent something cheaper and bigger, you are going to have to commute. It sucks but the majority of my co-workers and I that work at Stowe mountain live about 45-60 mins away from work or they have roommates to be able to afford to live semi-closer. I live 60 minutes away, but the pay makes it worth the commute.

You also are going have to take your expectations of finding a turn key home with a reasonable price out of the equation. At this point a fixer upper, mobile home or modular home may be your best bet but don't take that commute out of the equation.

Have you tried looking in Brandon? Bristol? Pittsford? areas

You are not alone the housing crisis is real and we are all waiting for these second homeowners, Airbnb owners and people that can't hack the Vermont lifestyle to get sick of it and leave. So we can finally buy again!

Don't give up.....Part of living in Vermont is overcoming adversity and becoming stronger for it.

My husband works almost constantly and I don't know how to do DIY so that would be really tough. But I'm happy it worked out for you :)

Hey! I'm sorry to hear you weren't able to make it out here, but maybe it was a blessing in disguise because financially you might not have done any better here. I guess you never know what the future holds though.

No, we haven't been back since we left because it's too expensive to travel. I was born and raised outside of Helena and everytime we went to visit it broke my heart to see how different it was from when I was a kid. Bozeman is basically unrecognizable now. Seems like only the rich could afford to live in the country like we wanted so we decided there was nothing left for us there and left.

All I ever wanted was a little house in the country, with chickens and a garden so we could grow some of our own food and live a quiet life. I thought we could have that here but I guess not.

Yes, we are keeping our eyes open for places to open up there

It's really cute bute way out of our price range :(

:/ I have been looking in Rutland and all the cheaper areas.

Have you considered Brandon? It's a relatively short commute to Middlebury, has some nice downtown businesses, and seems to have more affordable housing inventory, particularly if you're open to putting in some work.

My husband is paying your state good money in taxes and getting basically nothing in return for it because we technically live in New York.

:( I hadn't heard about that other stuff.

You can see how great it *could* be. But the amount of work this place needs... at today's borrowing rates, it's not a great deal.

Thanks, I appreciate it. 🙏

Check out townhouses! There are actually a ton of them in the area and a lot of people overlook them because they are filtering searches for single family homes.

We are looking literally anywhere within an hour if Middlebury, so yes. 👍

The rural areas are now unaffordable as well. I also would like to live out in the sticks and have some land and get out of SB but along with the OP, anywhere within an hour commute is way out of our price range. The only 'affordable' areas I see when on Zillow is like Springfield/southern Vermont.

This is definitely among the most affordable areas to buy. Could buy something like this duplex just north of Rutland and cover most of your mortgage with the second unit: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/33-35-East-St-Proctor-VT-05765/2060125590_zpid/

Or a cute single family home in Rutland for $200k: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/17-Phillips-St-Rutland-VT-05701/92022104_zpid/

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5-Burr-Pond-Road-Sudbury-VT-05733/115805251_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare

It's been on the market a long time - offer 220. With a 20% down payment your monthly payment could be under 1,500.

We haven't been able to save much money since food and the cost of living is so high, so we'd be lucky to be able to put down 3% :( But it's really nice! We'll keep it on my mind, thank you.

What??? That's bullshit and you know it. Even if VT taxes are taken out you will get them back when you file. Let me get my boots shits getting deep in here.

Have you looked into down payment assistance?

I really didn't want to live in town but we have accepted that we'll probably have to. We've been keeping townhouses on our radar, along with anything else within driving distance.

I haven't heard of that before, but I do know we don't qualify for a lot of things because we're not first time home buyers and because my husband "makes too much". Of course they don't factor in taxes or food or insurance or anything else that leaves us with barely anything at the end of the month :(

It's not bad, but interest rates are high to buy right now and nothing is available to buy or rent in our price range. Also it would be nice to live closer to Middlebury for my husband's work so he doesn't have to drive almost two hours every day. He keeps saying that no one can get help out there because no one can afford to live there, like us. If Middlebury wants services they really need to have housing. :(

Our townhouse is on the line between Essex and Jericho. Not all of the townhouses are actually in a town.

There are several homes for sale in Port Henry that need work but are very affordable.

it's a terrible time to buy with interest rates. no one is going to move right now either if they have a lower rate, no one is going to sell a home with a 2.25% mortgage to sign a new one with 7%.

try looking from rutland north, you might find something. renting/buying in middlebury is probably out of most VTer's range, especially buying

Yes. We drive through those towns to visit family in NY and they are rural but much more affordable

We were actually just looking in that area yesterday online! Will definitely be keeping it in mind, thanks. 😊

Very true. Yes, we are definitely keeping Rutland on our radar.

Okay, nice to know, thank you 😊

Why do you dedicate your reddit account to shitting on Vermont? Why not, instead, contribute positively to r/Arkansas, since you love it there so much?

We have been looking in New York too.

And all of the taxes we pay on goods and services because we do all of our shopping in Vermont? I guess those don't count for anything either.

Thank you for the kind words and encouragement, I really appreciate it. Yes, we had to commute quite a bit back home to in order to make money. With my husband being a chef, we have to live within driving distance of larger cities, so we're used to it. We really don't want to live farther out than an hour though, that would just be too much unless the pay was incredible, which rarely is the case for kitchen workers.

We have been looking at mobile homes as well as fixer uppers that don't require too much work because my husband doesn't have time to work on a house between his job and school and I don't know anything about DIY and have a baby to watch all day. If it just looks shabby and needs a paint job though that's no problem.

We will do our best to keep our heads up and find a way out of this. Just the waiting is the hard part.

While it’s a cruel thing to say it’s also honest. People in their 20s and 30s aren’t having a lot of kids these days because they are flat out unaffordable and because they spend so much time working and commuting the thought of having a family just doesn’t make sense. It seems like they are a single paycheck household and likewise isn’t really a thing anymore.

Maybe start looking for jobs for a chef some place in the NEK? It is significantly cheaper. It was the only place in Vermont we could reasonably afford.

I would love to. The question is whether or not there's anything out there for him to do work-wise.

Check out the Champlain housing trust, I know a few people who bought homes through them and well you don’t own the entire home it does make homeownership a lot more affordable.

https://www.getahome.org/

Bruh OP and her husband are working class people, they’re not some lawyer or doctor from Massachusetts buying their sixth vacation home. We have a labor crisis in the state and we need to attract blue collar people to do the jobs that a lot of the recent transplants refused to do.

The other stuff is happening mostly in Burlington which is about an hour from where your husband works and you can’t afford to live in Burlington anyways so that solves that problem.

Thank you!

Well, there are restaurants out here, so maybe ask around? I just heard yesterday on this subreddit that Dusit Thai is having a staff shortage. I checked their Facebook and they do talk about having a chef shortage.

You own the entire home, but you lease the land it is on. For all intents and purposes, you own it all and can do whatever you want with it within reason. They set it up this way so that you are legally required to sell it back to them if you ever wish to sell. If you do sell, you only receive 25% of the net market increase, and 75% goes back into the program to help keep homeownership affordable.

Some areas of northern VT are more affordable, Franklin county or the NEK (Caledonia/essex/Orleans county). of course that would likely mean a career change if you’re working in the middlebury area, but sometimes it’s worth doing that. St Albans is a nice up and coming town in Franklin County and the surrounding rural towns are still fairly cheap to live.

It is really nice up there, I would love to live in a place like that. My husband is working on his degree right now so hopefully someday we could go that way, but while he's working as a chef we have to stick close to more urban areas unfortunately. :(

I hear you. Does it have to be middlebury? Franklin County can be a reasonable commute to Burlington for instance, which I’m sure has high end restaurants he could Chef at. For instance, my wife and I live in Fairfax in Franklin County and it takes just a little over 30 mins to reach Burlington or Williston areas.

Are you me? My husband grew up in Middlebury and we just moved back in Aug from Idaho. We had a baby over the summer, right before we moved. We searched for a home for over a year and caught a break when my husbands coworker knew someone selling so we were able to buy before going to market. I miss Idaho like no other… scary politics, insane housing market (it’s cooling now) but I don’t feel connected to Vermont as home yet. If you need someone to grab coffee with or a beer, let me know. We go to Middlebury to see my husbands family fairly often. You are not alone!

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Right? It has been an adventure!

It pains me to see people who's family's lived here for literally hundreds of years get priced out. Will Vermont have a "serf" class who can't afford to live here? Will they commute in from other states to work for the people who bought the neighborhoods they were born in? If our lords and ladies in Montpelier can offer money for tech workers to relocate here, why can't they first help the locals?

I bought a home for 150k. It’s a mobile, with land. I don’t wish to generalize, but it’s my suspicion that most people would find something affordable if they lowered their standards a bit. My home isn’t shiny but it’s liveable. Not in the area I desired most, but damn near. Widen your net. Put in some sweat equity. Vermont is always gonna be Vermont. People everywhere have always been people. Stories shape our lives, so take a more authorial approach and don’t believe everything you read.

It will be a while before these are built (I think they're not breaking ground until 2024) but this will help ease the shortage in Middlebury! https://vtdigger.org/2023/01/20/up-to-250-units-planned-to-help-address-middleburys-affordable-housing-shortage/

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Aw, thank you! That's really great that you were able to find a home :) It's tough out there right now. I spent a little over a year in Idaho and loved it, because it really didn't feel that different from Montana. We've considered moving there but I hear it's pretty expensive too these days.

I suppose we could start looking elsewhere, but the place he's currently at has a lot of growth potential for his career and he's on track to being promoted soon. We would hate to have to leave because of that, but if we have to we will.

Maybe we should all take Reddit's suggestion, and move to West Virginia. Coal country is calling!

Thanks for the advice and encouragement. We are definitely keeping our eyes open for mobile homes and have been since we moved here. We just don't want my husband driving more than 2 hours a day for work is all.

My husband did mention that recently, but he said he's pretty sure most of it is reserved for students and healthcare workers.

Thanks, we will check around. I doubt anywhere will pay as good as he's getting paid in Middlebury but that's the sacrifice we'll have to make I suppose.

Same thing is happening in Southern Michigan. When we sold our house in Michigan, we had 41 walkthroughs and 14 offers in 36 hours. Sold our house for $50,000 over $300,000 list. We paid $224,000 for the place in 2015 and did not do a ton to the place. It listed again last year for $405,000. Oh, and the ground water was polluted with PFAS.

I mean this nicely, but it does not sound like you are financially ready to purchase a home. You should work on increasing your savings, and either making more money or budgeting in a way that you aren't left with "barely anything" at the end of the month before you think about buying. Highly recommend checking out r/personalfinance

Thanks, I'll look into it.

There are some pretty nice restaurants in the Newport area, it's a beautiful place and much more affordable than the Middlebury area you could probably find something decent up there to buy or rent. Stowe (for work) is an option Lamoille county might offer some better rental opportunities, they are building apartments in Morrisville.

Thanks for the suggestions! That's really helpful 😊

Welcome to Vermont, great if you're a tourist, a financial dead end trap if you're a local

😔

"will"? Already happening, in Rutland, Bennington, Brattleboro, WRJ...

And, Cornwall is like the rich suburb of Middlebury... Nothing in Addison County is gonna be cheap unless it's falling over. Look into outskirt towns on the edge of Rutland County, Leicester, Whiting, Brandon... but even then, we rented in Benson for 7 years before we found something affordable in Sudbury.

And who did their family take the land from?

This is my neighbors house... It's not a bad house necessarily, the new "owners" are looking for a flip. They cleaned up the yard from the previous owner, a mason who had piles of rock and brick everywhere. It's a nice spot but right on Route 30 and kind of loud. I think a year ago that house was listing for over 325,000...

​

edit: I moved to Whitefish, MT in 2001 lived for a year and couldn't afford it being a ski bum, moved back to VT in 2004, took 12 years before we could really find anything affordable, and my salary increased enough to buy anything around Addison County. Good Luck! (and i don't mean that sarcastically!)

Stop digging.

Please don't give them ideas. The NEK is a hotbed of racism and bigotry certainly not a place to move to.

Can he run a saw? If so he's got work haha

Hmm. Good question 😆

Honestly we don't need your brand of superficial bull crap out this way. I read your he wont shave crap and good lord. You ever think that you might be his problem? FFS

When we moved from NY 21 years ago we settled in a small town that was considered the ugly stepsister of the surrounding ski towns. Houses would sit on the market for months or years. We got a good deal on a basic 3 bedroom/ 2 bath farmhouse. Fast forward and now that only the ultra rich can afford to buy in the more expensive towns, our town has been discovered by Airbnb investors and rich second home seekers. There hasn’t been an affordable home on the market in ages and there are fewer than 10 homes listed for sale. It’s crazy how unaffordable working class towns have become.

That kitchen! Original cabinets, weird layouts, linoleum floor.

This whole place is a "handyman special".

Be less of a hypocrite

So others won't be deceived like I was. There's 2 sides to a pancake; evidently the truth offends certain people. I am not "shitting on Vermont". I am just sharing the experience I had attempting to live there.

These kinds of assessments may have more meaning for me if I hadn’t moved here from Texas.

Imagine you hated, say, I don't know, say.... golf. It could be anything, but let's say, golf.

Someone told you it was a great pastime, way to get exercise, get out into nature, and a fun sport. Told you how much you'd love it. Convinced you to buy a set of expensive golf clubs, get a membership to an expensive fancy golf club.

But then you tried it, and you hated it. You it found boring, overpriced, stupid. The people there, you find pompous, vapid and aristocratic. So now, you're pissed; you spent all that money and time getting involved in something you realize you hate. So, do you move on with your life and focus on things you do enjoy? Do you let the people who enjoy golf alone, to enjoy what they like? No. Not you.

Instead, you start a reddit account, and troll r/golf. You use your account for the primary purpose to find any opportunity to tell to the people there -- people who congregate there to talk about golf, because you know, they are into golf, and they like it -- how stupid their pastime is. How terrible golf is. When you get called out on your negativity, you dishonestly say "I'm just sharing my experience. Some people are just offended by the truth."

It's called shitting on something. It's not altruistic. You're not helping anyone avoid deception. It's toxic, bitter and negative. You've been obsessed with Vermont for almost year. I hope you get over it, and find a more productive hobby, for your own sake.

Your opinion....

Did I state an untruth?

Don't miss the flat roof too. Amazing views and close to town though.

Total sarcasm there bud. The NEK gets stereotyped bad for that shit but really it's pretty quiet out here and most of the crazy shit goes on the northwest side. By far. But at the same time the rep can keep the population down which is kinda why I live here. Nice and quiet:)

Ha, sorry I missed that. I just hear it said so often in complete seriousness on this subreddit that it boggles my mind.

ETA: Lack of population is a huge draw for me too. I’m going to be pretty sore if we ever get to the point that the population is high enough that the ensuing light pollution blots out the Milky Way. Newport/Derby dims it enough already.

NP lol I am with ya on the light pollution we are pretty active stargazers watchers whatever you call it. Fairly decent Meade lx2000 does well out here in what I call the real NEK. We are on the CT River and the Milky Way is always visible. You can hear a mouse shit at 2am in the winter here it's really incredible. I grew up in mass sadly and I am so done with it all. Cheers!