Mobile homes

The median sales price of primary homes sold in Vermont continued increasing in the first half of 2023, reaching a median value of $315,000 for homes sold during that period, according to recent Vermont Property Transfer Tax (PTT) records. This continues a trend in which no county in Vermont has seen a decline in annual median home sale price during the period from 2019-2022.

The past few years have witnessed a societal reckoning with income, class, and racial disparities, particularly as they relate to health and well-being. A number of multisector collaborations with a focus on environmental justice and social determinants of health have sprouted up and are leveraging advocacy, philanthropy, and governmental policy to address these intersectional issues.

Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) is seeking an organization or consortium to provide technical assistance to Manufactured Home Communities (MHC) to assist them in completing financial analyses or preparing applications to meet their infrastructure needs. Applications are due on May 25, 2022.

Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) has announced an expansion of the Vermont Mortgage Assistance Program in order to assist more Vermont homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgage and are facing economic hardship brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Residents of Windy Hollow Cooperative in Castleton are celebrating the successful purchase of their mobile home park, which was assisted by Vermont Housing Finance Agency. The creation of the housing co-op will help retain affordable homes for 44 households.

Unique features of rural housing require flexible national policies and financing programs, explains Executive Director Sarah Carpenter in her recent article for Rural Voices, a journal of the Housing Assistance Council.

Carpenter provides numerous examples of how the small-scale nature and sparce dispersion of the population in Vermont creates special challenges for financing owner and rental housing given recent trends toward more standardization of national mortgage finance practices. 

After sitting vacant for six years, the Gevries mobile home park in Addison County has started redevelopment.  VHFA provided housing tax credits that will cover an estimated 60 percent of the project’s costs and ensure that the new 14-home community will be affordable for low-income renters of all ages. By installing VERMOD high-performance duplex homes, developers Cathedral Square Corporation and Addison County Community Trust anticipate that the neighborhood will achieve net-zero annual energy costs, another critical component of its long-term affordability. 

Watch Local22’s story last week about the project. 

Steve Davis, owner of the Wilder-based VerMod company is becoming recognized not just for his company's high quality modular homes but for the employment opportunities he has created for residents of the Hartford Dismas House. Dismas provides group-setting affordable housing to people recently released from prison.  Read more in Sunday's Valley News.

A recent study from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies uses experience gained during Vermont initiatives to suggest effective strategies for mobile home replacement.  VHFA’s allocation of tax credits for helping Vermonters replace dilapidated mobile homes is one the report’s examples of resourcefulness.

On Monday, April 20, the VHFA Board of Commissioners committed $2.55 million in federal low-income housing tax credits and $432,500 in state housing tax credits to expand Vermont’s stock of affordable, energy-efficient housing.  The tax credits will generate approximately $23.5 million in upfront equity for the construction and rehabilitation of 452 primarily rental homes across the state, guaranteed to remain affordable for at least 30 years.