Another in a series of very poor decisions.

You just were...

>act 250 might be the biggest culprit

no shit sherlock. I'm all for no billboards but A250 is a dinosaur that needs extinction in place of new legislation that is more up to date with the times. It was passed in 19 fricking 70 for crying out loud.

The second home owners do contribute to the tax base, don’t have kids in your schools or put excessive demands on town services.

VT is nowhere near big enough for that strategy to work for anyone. You’re thinking cities as big as our state where this happens.

If it was “never meant” for spouses and kids, it’s odd that they are just now starting to have a problem with it. I was there 97-01 and there were plenty of families in those apartments JSC has been on a race to the bottom since the mid 90’s. Sorry for your situation.

Im curious what percent of vacant homes are owned by investors and being warehoused to build a supply crunch to keep prices high.

Yeah I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be allowed. However, lots of second homes in my area are just pretty standard sized houses. 2 or 3 bedrooms. Not out of everyones price rangeZ. No one is screaming about them though, just the Air BnB’s.

As I was driving home today, I counted how many houses on my road were vacant. Half are occupied. Half are empty second homes. The non homestead tax rate should be much higher, not lower.

This bum still doesn’t think he did anything wrong. I remember him testifying that he signed all the papers that Quiros sent him because he trusted Quiros. Doesn’t sound much like a smart business man, does he? Prosecutors said he was the front man for the scheme. Since he feels innocent, I guess he’s like a bank robber who thinks he’s innocent because he only drove the getaway car.

You beat me to it.

Why are people not allowed second homes? The homes they are building are waaaaaaay out of your price range anyways. Guaranteed.

Yeah capitalism is the worst! /s

Nobody wants to see your ass.

That is on my list, but it seemed as though public outrage has kept some of these negative changes from happening in the past so I’m trying to get the word out anyway I can.

I love how the echo chamber works here. “Ooh! Air BnB bad! Rent is high! Houses are hard to find!”. Bullshit. Interest rates are high.

Sort term rentals make up 3% of the housing in VT. Vacation homes are 17%. I personally know a farmer and a heavy equipment operator who own Air BnB’s that they bought and built with blue collar money and sweat.

You all should be complaining about the 1% lawyers and dentists from CT who own second homes here. Don’t punish native entrepreneurs.

And before you scream housing crisis, look at some of the short term rentals around you. They’re not all exactly suitable for long term rentals.

Contact your trusty legislators.

This is long but I’m pretty deep into collecting and shooting firearms.

Assuming you are not a privileged person buying a gun in Vermont is as simple as going to the gun store, telling them what you want and filling out paperwork. The background check process is usually quite quick, mine go through in about 10 minutes. Parro’s is the best gun store in the state, they have a really nice 25 yard indoor range and all the handguns, shotguns and rifles are out on display so you can handle them without having to ask. Obviously do not point them at anyone because they may respond badly to that.

The most popular option for home defense these days is an AR15 chambered in 5.56. It’s much easier to shoot a rifle with proficiency that handgun, you’ll be surprised how difficult it is to hit a target at 7-10 yards with a handgun when you’re new by hitting targets at 100 yards with a rifle is something I can teach someone in a half hour. 5.56 is extremely effective at stopping human threats and the ammo isn’t that expensive. Get a S&W M&P Sport II or Ruger AR556, they are both trustworthy budget options. Aero, Windham and Del-Ton are also trustworthy budget options.

If you want to hunt deer something like a savage axis I.O.I or Ruger American would be a good budget option. .308 Winchester Is the ideal cartridge because it is the least expensive full power cartridge that will take anything from small deer to big moose pending on bullet construction.

If you want to hunt turkeys 12 gauge pump with a 28” barrel will do the trick. Türkiye loads cost more than what you use for dove or squirrels but they are worth it. I recommend a Mossberg 500, if you can get one that comes with both of 18.5” and 28” barrel it’s even better because you can switch between two in seconds. Longer barrel is for hunting birds, the shorter barrel is effective for self defense with buckshot or hunting out to about 75 yards with rifled slugs. A full power rifled slug throws 1 oz of lead at 1,600 fps, that will take any game animal in North America especially if you purchase loads meant for large and dangerous game. Please never use birdshot for self defense or hunting anything bigger than burdens, it will not get the job done.

If you plan on carrying you have tons of options these days. I tend to carry full size pistols, namely Berettas and CZ’s. That said they’re big and heavy, pretty much the best subcompact carry option these days is a G43x or Smith and Wesson Shield Plus. I’m old fashioned and prefer a safety on my carry pistol because I’m going to carry it for decades and probably never have to draw so I like the peace of mind but if you have a good retention holster you really don’t need a safety. Don’t buy a crappy generic holster, avoid leather go with Kydex.

If you plan on shooting please always wear hearing protection, for some reason a lot of people seem to think they don’t need to when they’re shooting outside and they do permanent catastrophic damage to their hearing. It’s best to use both properly inserted ear plugs and earmuffs at the same time, from an old man with tinnitus I can promise you you do not want tinnitus.

I moved to Southern Vermont in 2019. Here's my take as a queer but not 'traditionally gay' man while here the last four years:

If there are such things as gayborhoods, they are older gay and lesbian couples that came out or settled here two or three decades ago. The younger, more varied queer folk are spread more thin and those native to Vermont seem to want to leave as quickly as they can for places with larger and more.doverse queer communities.

Personally the communities I connect with now are located in Albany, NY and Springfield and Boston, Mass. So it's not really local at all. Living in Burlington would be different but even then the community there is smaller than the three I listed in larger cities further south.

On the other topic, I come from a family of outdoors people from the Midwest, so I too am a gun owner. Vermont is fairly straight forward, what you have to watch out for is the neighboring states, some are VERY strict. Without knowing any better I stopped in a Cabela's in Mass on my way home from Boston thinking I'd pick up some rimfire rounds and when I tried to check out without a Mass license or whatever you'd have thought by their reaction that I was a terrorist trying to buy bombmaking materials.

The few folks who have been saying this keep getting shouted down by the frothy-mouthed masses.

Folks gonna believe whatever makes it easier to support their viewpoint and direct their anger.

I'm not the one defending a fat, orange traitor, but you do you, ma'am.

And you think the amount of short term rentals hasn't risen with the popularity of Airbnb?

Brave Little State recently did a great piece on VT AirBnB’s that everyone should read. Basically, AirBnB’s only account for 3% of VT’s available housing while 2nd family vacation homes take up 17% of all available housing. The biggest communities affected in VT are near ski resorts, which is no surprise. The real culprit in VT is that building is not keeping up with demand, and act 250 might be the biggest culprit: https://www.vermontpublic.org/podcast/brave-little-state/2023-03-09/how-many-airbnbs-are-taking-away-from-vermonters-its-complicated

> As the market normalizes, some short-term-rental hosts are coming to grips with the fact that the banner days of 2021 are long gone.

We're a year past 2021 and people are acting like Airbnb's are now a thing of the past?

Not to mention the article burying the lede on why occupancy is falling: new rentals coming online are outstripping increased demand. So if demand doubles and the number of available Airbnb's triple, then it's still booked as an increase in vacancies according to this article. I have many, many issues with Airbnb, but it's continuing to make record profits with no end in sight.

Exactly.