I just watched at most a minute of his advent calendar themed video on Unions from a few months ago.

It's clear I'm not his target demographic with his content production style.

100% agree. Half the homes in my neighborhood are AirBNBs. It’s nice to have neighbors and lonely when the empty houses outweigh the permanent residents.

“Blocks of hotels masquerading as single family homes” is a beautiful way to describe neighborhoods transforming into AirBNBs

Well Water 100%.

Town I live in has town water and thats what I am hooked up to. I was lucky enough to buy my place but in retrospect should have asked if I'll need to buy a water softener since I've know learned the waters pretty hard.

This is the advice you need. Landscapers/Plow companies are all in high demand and will remain so for the foreseeable future here in Vermont. Obviously, you can wait till next season to find a different provider but the season won't be over for a few more months so present your issues like the above commenter writes and you'll be fine. If you do reach out to the provider ask them to avoid sanding/plowing certain sections and you'll handle the rest through shoveling or sanding. Problem solved.

It is easy to forget the men/women who drive these trucks are spending long hours in terrible weather conditions providing an under appreciated at times service for us all so we may avoid snow blowing/shoveling. Hiring a company to plow or sand my driveway sounds like a dream. However, my reality is that my driveway is ancient and a plow truck would make mince meat of it. This is not the fault of the plow or the plow driver but due to the age of my driveway.

Here is my judgmental take: If I had a "rare car" like you write in later comments below I'd find a garage to park it in for the season rather than expose it to the New England roads at winter time. If I don't want or can't do that then I accept like an adult the risk of my "rare car" getting the wear and tear which comes with driving in New England winters.

Hadn't even considered that as a potential opportunity. So to follow that thought trend: I'm a developer who (qualifications for these state funded grants not yet known based on the linked article alone) gets state funding and re-zones a 5 acre swatch of farm land into multiple 2,480 square foot homes (median home size in the U.S according to Google). As it stands now nothing would stop me from turning this into a multi-unit STR community.

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This all really feeds back into my original thought which was what will the gatekeeping be to qualify for these subsidies from a developer perspective and measures to lock out these becoming STR immediately.

I'm not suggesting that at all. The point I am making is that in addition to revising zoning considerations you must also impose some form of legislation like is being done in tourist towns out in Colorado to mitigate STR.

Edit: My own neighborhood has 12 single family homes. Since Covid the number of STR has gone from 2 to 5 of the 12 total houses. One of which was formerly a single family for a long term renter who had to move due to the house being sold to someone who turned it into an STR.

STR = Short Term Rental (AirBNB/VRBO)

It will be interesting to see the qualifications for the "Missing Middle-Income Homeownership Development Program" and how the vetting process would work. Although the same could be said for any of the proposals highlighted in the article.

My initial concerns with this one here is the targeted townships for this 90 million dollar project. I've not yet dug into it but am curious if the Vermont senate is also targeting legislation to curtail STR as this seems like a huge contributor to the housing crisis going on here.

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I think the bills worthwhile fundamentally but it needs to be done in lockstep with curtailing STR running rampant across the state.

came here to say this exact thing. Many things I miss about Boston but the 45 minute commute to Alewife followed by the hour of subway is one thing I do not miss.

Karma farming by the looks of it. Might be a legit person running it but 12K Karma in a month. Jesus. Like someone said above: Go Outside. Touch grass.

1200 sq feet, 1960s build with spray foam insulation, wood stove and 7 year old baseboard heater furnaces.

GMP 62 bucks.

Cost of heating oil/wood thus far: 900.

I noticed about 1.5 years ago my energy costs seemed to have doubled. Since then I've taken up unplugging unused appliances when possible (also end of night). Still higher than I'd like but it has made a dent.

When whole streets become vacant due to unregulated short term rentals it creates an enormous cultural impact to the town/area. My street since Covid has become fifty percent STR/AirBNB/VRBO.

Whenever a house comes up for sale I wonder what rate the new owners will charge a night for the place.

At a certain point I'd think that especially in smaller VT towns the number of STR will eventually outnumber the full time residents of the area. When this occurs what really would bring someone to visit here except for a romanticized ideal of Vermont?

I would recommend if you find yourself in southern Vermont to check out Stratton, Bromley, and a good capper once those mountains are done to try out Magic.

Cool video on Magic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ik14dIsSRk

Def check Willoughby if possible. You’ll forget your in Vermont for a moment.