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i think the question is what would make you happier. a nicer place to live, sounds like it would help. If you got nicer housing, but you lived in moretown or waterbury, would you be happier or just bored?
It's tough because i think you can buy for less than you can rent, and you can buy some nice little 2 bedroom condos for 100-140k in waterbury, montpelier and moretown... ends up being much less than renting on a 30 year mortgage.
I don't know what to do with our 20 month old really. We go to playgrounds (not during school hours) but otherwise he just wanders around outside, stomps in puddles lately. how old is your child?
I would say you should come over to the mad river valley and do some skiing but i think we are going to lose all of the snow this week
Houses are old, dingy, falling apart. Everybody seems to keep a pile of junk on their porch, especially in Barre. The impression I get is that people don't seem to care about their houses. Actually, discussing the area with a coworker who is also new to the area, he said the exact same thing. This is NOT the Vermont I saw in pictures.
I can't find a decent place to live!
First thing I noticed when I moved here too. Our plan was to move to rural vermont, but we decided to live ampng transplants in Chittenden County because they take care of their homes and property.
I'm going to reprint something I wrote years ago, I apologize to those people who have seen it too many times.
I'm guessing that some of you are thinking about fleeing large metro areas for Vermont. I moved to the Burlington area from Chicago four years ago, so perhaps you can learn from my experience.
My wife and I lived in a small town about 35 miles west of Chicago. When we moved there in the early 90's it was ten miles west of suburban sprawl. Ten years later we were right in the middle of it, trucks were rocking our windows. I had to go around the block to turn in my driveway because there was so much traffic in the street in front of our house. Then my dad passed away in Albany, NY and we had to move to be closer to be my mom. We weren't big fans of that area but we always loved Vermont. We figured that a 2 or 3 hour commute would be ok so we applied for jobs in Burlington, got them, put our Illinois house on the market, and started looking for houses in Burlington.
Let me start by saying that we were fans of Vermont, but never really visited the Burlington area. When we first arrived there we agreed that the
area didn't really feel like New England, it had more of an upstate New York feeling. We looked at several towns in the area, and we couldn't quite
find the pretty Vermont towns we had pictured in our head. You know, white steeples, village green, PAINTED (!) homes. Now that I live in Vermont I know there are maybe 5 towns like that in the entire state, all tourist destinations. There were a few interesting towns, all pretty expensive with drawbacks. A lot of people like Jericho and Underhill- I do too, but it's expensive and I don't like the busy commuting road. Some people think Shelburne is great. I like parts of it, but much of it is closer to RTE 7 than I'd like. Bristol had that New England feeling I was looking for, but it was 45 minutes away. Also, people there just didn't care for their houses- lots of peeling paint and crap in the yard.
What got out attention however, was the high cost of housing. We wanted to spend about $300,000 and could find nothing interesting. We didn't want to move into a suburban area like South Burlington. Not that there's anything wrong with South Burlington, but we didn't flee Chicago for Vermont to live in another suburb. We then decided to target Franklin County, because it was much cheaper. We looked at dozens of homes.
Some of the homes were ok, but they were bordering properties with garbage, old cars, or smelly animals. We found a lot of this in Franklin County.
We then looked around Jeffersonville (45 minutes away). We liked the town and found a house we liked. It was only on about an eighth of an acre. We came very, very close to buying this home, but it was by a sewage treatment plant and we got a faint smell one day. We still considered it, but I just didn't want to have that smell hanging over my head, worrying if it smelled when friends came over. I became obsessed with traffic noise in my
old house and I didn't want something always on my mind again.
At this point we were getting depressed. We were sick of living in an apartment in Bristol and really found nothing. We were really sick of driving around with our real estate agent and getting home at ten o'clock. The area was really expensive and to make matters worse it wasn't what we pictured. We were depressed! Then, she called about a log cabin for sale in Williston. Williston was actually at the top of my list of towns that I would never live in. It is the shopping center of Vermont. Best Buy, Circuit City, Bed Bath and Beyond etc. Just what we were fleeing in Chicago. Reluctantly, I looked at it. Although, it's in Williston it's several miles from the shopping. I also discovered much of Williston is quite beautiful. The shopping center is actually laid out nicely too, as it doesn't spread out on the main street for very long. There is a fair amount of traffic around it, but I turn the other way off the highway. Long story short, we bought the cabin and love it. It's smaller than we're used to, but I've never wished I had more room.
So what have I learned?
1) Don't get caught up in the town you'll live in (other than for school reasons). When I lived in Chicago there were towns that were nice and not nice. It's different here. There's nice and not nice everywhere. There really are Larry, Darryls and Darryls everywhere. There's always the Vermonter who wants to exercise his rights by piling crap in his yard. You'll be amazed how many people don't paint their houses (more on this later).
2) Careful with the commute. Maybe you're used to commuting an hour and you are tempted to do the same here so you can get more house for the money. Just remember we get a ton of snow and lots of ice. On snowy days, I often think I'm glad we didn't move to Jeffersonville. Besides, you're move to Vermont is about tranquility. Get a smaller house and cut down on the commuting time. I now commute 15 minutes door to door. In Chicago, my car/train ride was almost two hours each way. What a waste of time!!
3) It’s expensive here, and the expensive houses are just part of the reason.
Salaries are really low. A job that paid 60k in Chicago pays about 40-45k here. Cost of fuel is really high here too. It gets cold! And the harsh weather will get you, financially, in a way that you weren't expecting. It happens to everyone, everyone has a story. Last year we had a lot of snow on our (metal) roof. Part of it melted and then refroze on the bottom. I had about 6 inches of ice at the base, which slid off and ripped my exhaust pipe out of my roof, leaving a 10-inch hole in my roof. Believe me, this stuff happens all the time. If you live in the country don't forget costs to maintain private roads. You also won't have city water or sewage. You have to learn about it and maintain that. It can all be expensive. Look around Vermont-it's the land of maroon and green Subaru’s. Very few
expensive cars- we can't afford them. I now realize a lot of people don't make their houses spiffy clean and painted because they simply can't afford to. Native Vermonters are getting squeezed out of areas by out of towners who are selling their homes in expensive cities and moving here.
4) Burlington is in Vermont-sort of. We now love Burlington. I couldn't imagine a cooler city. The people are the friendliest I've encountered, and I've lived all over the US. It's a rare thriving medium size Northeastern city.
Only thing is, most of the people here aren’t from Vermont. You'll find that the city is full of people like me, escapees fed up with city/suburban life.
Tons of people from Boston New York etc. USA today reported that
72 percent of last year’s freshman class was from out of state. So, the good thing is that people who live here choose to live here and it has a happy vibe to it. Artsy, tolerant, most people don't care about what you drive and where you live.
5) You’ll hit a few bumps in the road-Many of us always visited Vermont during foliage season and have this utopian image in our head. Something you didn't expect will get you, believe me. For me it was deerflies. I never saw or heard of them. In June, as I was getting my septic system inspected, I noticed these flies buzzing around my head really fast, like electrons around an atom. Little did I know they would become my archenemies around June July and part of august. I hated them and actually
regretted buying my property. I have since calmed down and deal with them. Isn't even that big of a deal anymore, but it was at first.
In summary I love it, I've never been happier anywhere. It wasn't what I pictured so I just had to get rid of all pre-conceived notion and jump right in. It's not perfect, but when I sit on my porch in the evening and look at
the trees on our (small) beautiful mountain, I feel truly blessed and content.
Last edited by quickdraw; 03-13-2012 at 04:30 PM..
First thing I noticed when I moved here too. Our plan was to move to rural vermont, but we decided to live ampng transplants in Chittenden County because they take care of their homes and property.
I'm going to reprint something I wrote years ago, I apologize to those people who have seen it too many times.
I'm guessing that some of you are thinking about fleeing large metro areas for Vermont. I moved to the Burlington area from Chicago four years ago, so perhaps you can learn from my experience.
My wife and I lived in a small town about 35 miles west of Chicago. When we moved there in the early 90's it was ten miles west of suburban sprawl. Ten years later we were right in the middle of it, trucks were rocking our windows. I had to go around the block to turn in my driveway because there was so much traffic in the street in front of our house. Then my dad passed away in Albany, NY and we had to move to be closer to be my mom. We weren't big fans of that area but we always loved Vermont. We figured that a 2 or 3 hour commute would be ok so we applied for jobs in Burlington, got them, put our Illinois house on the market, and started looking for houses in Burlington.
Let me start by saying that we were fans of Vermont, but never really visited the Burlington area. When we first arrived there we agreed that the
area didn't really feel like New England, it had more of an upstate New York feeling. We looked at several towns in the area, and we couldn't quite find the pretty Vermont towns we had pictured in our head. You know, white steeples, village green, PAINTED (!) homes. Now that I live in Vermont I know there are maybe 5 towns like that in the entire state, all tourist destinations. There were a few interesting towns, all pretty expensive with drawbacks. A lot of people like Jericho and Underhill- I do too, but it's expensive and I don't like the busy commuting road. Some people think Shelburne is great. I like parts of it, but much of it is closer to RTE 7 than I'd like. Bristol had that New England feeling I was looking for, but it was 45 minutes away. Also, people there just didn't care for their houses- lots of peeling paint and crap in the yard.
What got out attention however, was the high cost of housing. We wanted to spend about $300,000 and could find nothing interesting. We didn't want to move into a suburban area like South Burlington. Not that there's anything wrong with South Burlington, but we didn't flee Chicago for Vermont to live in another suburb. We then decided to target Franklin County, because it was much cheaper. We looked at dozens of homes.
Some of the homes were ok, but they were bordering properties with garbage, old cars, or smelly animals. We found a lot of this in Franklin County.
We then looked around Jeffersonville (45 minutes away). We liked the town and found a house we liked. It was only on about an eighth of an acre. We came very, very close to buying this home, but it was by a sewage treatment plant and we got a faint smell one day. We still considered it, but I just didn't want to have that smell hanging over my head, worrying if it smelled when friends came over. I became obsessed with traffic noise in my
old house and I didn't want something always on my mind again.
At this point we were getting depressed. We were sick of living in an apartment in Bristol and really found nothing. We were really sick of driving around with our real estate agent and getting home at ten o'clock. The area was really expensive and to make matters worse it wasn't what we pictured. We were depressed! Then, she called about a log cabin for sale in Williston. Williston was actually at the top of my list of towns that I would never live in. It is the shopping center of Vermont. Best Buy, Circuit City, Bed Bath and Beyond etc. Just what we were fleeing in Chicago. Reluctantly, I looked at it. Although, it's in Williston it's several miles from the shopping. I also discovered much of Williston is quite beautiful. The shopping center is actually laid out nicely too, as it doesn't spread out on the main street for very long. There is a fair amount of traffic around it, but I turn the other way off the highway. Long story short, we bought the cabin and love it. It's smaller than we're used to, but I've never wished I had more room.
So what have I learned?
1) Don't get caught up in the town you'll live in (other than for school reasons). When I lived in Chicago there were towns that were nice and not nice. It's different here. There's nice and not nice everywhere. There really are Larry, Darryls and Darryls everywhere. There's always the Vermonter who wants to exercise his rights by piling crap in his yard. You'll be amazed how many people don't paint their houses (more on this later).
2) Careful with the commute. Maybe you're used to commuting an hour and you are tempted to do the same here so you can get more house for the money. Just remember we get a ton of snow and lots of ice. On snowy days, I often think I'm glad we didn't move to Jeffersonville. Besides, you're move to Vermont is about tranquility. Get a smaller house and cut down on the commuting time. I now commute 15 minutes door to door. In Chicago, my car/train ride was almost two hours each way. What a waste of time!!
3) It’s expensive here, and the expensive houses are just part of the reason.
Salaries are really low. A job that paid 60k in Chicago pays about 40-45k here. Cost of fuel is really high here too. It gets cold! And the harsh weather will get you, financially, in a way that you weren't expecting. It happens to everyone, everyone has a story. Last year we had a lot of snow on our (metal) roof. Part of it melted and then refroze on the bottom. I had about 6 inches of ice at the base, which slid off and ripped my exhaust pipe out of my roof, leaving a 10-inch hole in my roof. Believe me, this stuff happens all the time. If you live in the country don't forget costs to maintain private roads. You also won't have city water or sewage. You have to learn about it and maintain that. It can all be expensive. Look around Vermont-it's the land of maroon and green Subaru’s. Very few
expensive cars- we can't afford them. I now realize a lot of people don't make their houses spiffy clean and painted because they simply can't afford to. Native Vermonters are getting squeezed out of areas by out of towners who are selling their homes in expensive cities and moving here.
4) Burlington is in Vermont-sort of. We now love Burlington. I couldn't imagine a cooler city. The people are the friendliest I've encountered, and I've lived all over the US. It's a rare thriving medium size Northeastern city.
Only thing is, most of the people here aren’t from Vermont. You'll find that the city is full of people like me, escapees fed up with city/suburban life.
Tons of people from Boston New York etc. USA today reported that
72 percent of last year’s freshman class was from out of state. So, the good thing is that people who live here choose to live here and it has a happy vibe to it. Artsy, tolerant, most people don't care about what you drive and where you live.
5) You’ll hit a few bumps in the road-Many of us always visited Vermont during foliage season and have this utopian image in our head. Something you didn't expect will get you, believe me. For me it was deerflies. I never saw or heard of them. In June, as I was getting my septic system inspected, I noticed these flies buzzing around my head really fast, like electrons around an atom. Little did I know they would become my archenemies around June July and part of august. I hated them and actually
regretted buying my property. I have since calmed down and deal with them. Isn't even that big of a deal anymore, but it was at first.
In summary I love it, I've never been happier anywhere. It wasn't what I pictured so I just had to get rid of all pre-conceived notion and jump right in. It's not perfect, but when I sit on my porch in the evening and look at
the trees on our (small) beautiful mountain, I feel truly blessed and content.
Wow, what a great post! Rarely can someone convey so many good and bad impressions without falling into a rant or sing songy pollyanna infomercial. Thank you!
Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. It's definitely true that hating my housing situation brings down my whole impression of Vermont. When my housing situation improves, I'm sure so will my impression of the state overall. I'll check back in and post as the year continues.
Go rent the movie Funny Farm! You'll be able to relate. Get past mud season, find a house, get your life settled and relax. It's not perfect here but where is? Good luck!
Barre is not a good representation for a good look into Vermont it is more run down yuou will find that everywhere remember even the Bronx could look like a wonderful area if you take the right pictures and Vermont looks a lot niocer in my oopinion than the Bronx overall. Burlington metro area, Brattleboro, Hartford (VT) especially the villages of Quechee, Wilder and Hartford Village. Sound like a better fit.
How is Barre not representative of Vermont? Seriously places like Quechee are anything but representative. I get the impression that there is a certain level of denial about the degree to which long-term poverty has set in in the state.
Quechee in no way is representative of the majority of Vermont. It's a touristy area. Brattleboro isn't that representative either, it's a mecca for out of staters of the granola munching sort. I think frugalyankee is right, some people want to deny how serious the economic situation is in Vermont. That the OP is paying so much for a rundown apartment in a rural state speaks volumes.
I evacuated my family from Northern VA (just outside DC) last fall. We wanted to get away from the densely populated mega-tropolis and give our 4 year old a safe, healthy and fun place to grow up.
It was a huge shock once we got here to Windsor County, VT.
Vermont largely looks run down and depressing, almost like a few years have elapsed since the end of civilization, so no maintenance is being done on anything and properties are falling apart. When driving at night, it's hard not to daydream that some zombie apocalypse has indeed befallen the state.
We rented a 2-bedroom apartment in an old house for $600/mo., which is a great price. The place is falling apart. The front door doesn't latch or lock, most of the windows are painted shut, the kitchen and living room floors are sunken in like they're about to fall through the ground, the kitchen cabinets and counters aren't attached to anything, there are gaps between the flooring and the walls where cold air rushes in, turning on a hair dryer trips the circuit breaker, and it costs $400 a month to heat this place...
Having visited some other peoples' homes and apartments, this seems to be typical around here.
We're staying.
Why?
The people are fantastic. Our neighbors are caring and polite, nobody plays their "BOOM BOOM BOOM" crap from their car in front of my house at 11pm, the government believes I'm smart enough to carry a handgun without a permit (I don't, because I don't need to here), and mundane events are important enough to make the local paper. Mrs. Simpson's cow escaped? Front page story. Mr. Wilson crashed his car into a tree and was unharmed? Front page story. With photos.
Vermont is not a place that spoon feeds you comfort. You get out only what you put in. Apartment is cold? Learn how to weatherproof your windows and spray foam into those gaps between the flooring and the walls in the old house. Door doesn't latch or lock? Improvise a locking device.
In short, Vermont is not for the faint of heart. But it does reward you with kind people, low crime (yes, crime, but low), and my favorite part:
I haven't banged on my steering wheel since I got here.
Forget about that nice apartment you had with the gas fireplace and the granite countertops. Forget about the walk-in closets, the plush carpet and the sliding glass doors that went out onto the deck. Vermont is the real deal; people burn wood here or they freeze to death. Wal-Mart sells snow shoes.
If you can overcome the culture shock and put away what you "thought" was a nice place, and realize that people being kind to one another and not murdering each other is what civilization really ought to be, then maybe.....just maybe, you can put in enough elbow grease to get something rewarding out of living here.
Hmmm, you could have found all of this in the state of Virginia. The NOVA area may be as hellish as you described, but it's not indicative of the rest of the state, which is largely rural and peaceful outside of the major cities and tourist areas. In fact, I've heard people remark that Virginia is Vermont with better weather. And it has the added bonus of not being land-locked, and having not only a beautiful mountain range, but the ocean, too.
I just think that sometimes people get so angry about their situation they don't calmly think things through, and make hasty decisions. I'm not saying that's what you did, but you can peruse any of the forums on Citydata and read countless posts from people who moved to another state very different from their own, and now were unhappy, when maybe they should have just stayed where they were and tried a little harder to make things work out.
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