VHFA News

By: Leslie Black-Plumeau

The median price of a Vermont home jumped to $310,000 in 2022, an historic 15% increase from the prior year.  This is the largest annual percentage increase in the median sales price of primary homes since 1988 when the Vermont Department of Taxes began publishing home sales data. Among newly-built Vermont homes exclusively, the median price rose to $555,264 in 2022, up 21% from the prior year.

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Every Vermont county saw an increase in the median home price, with the exception of Essex County which remained the same and has few sales each year.  Orange County had the greatest increase where the median home price rose to $283,760 in 2022, up 29% from the prior year.

Home price data for every Vermont town and county are now available on the Vermont Housing Data website for 2022 and prior years.   

Steeply increasing home prices reflect Vermont’s constrained supply of available homes for sale and an increased demand to live in Vermont since the pandemic. The annual rate of growth in the number of year-round households in Vermont increased to 1.4% since the pandemic, compared to 0.8% in prior years.

Vermont’s housing supply and demand woes are reflected in national vacancy rate metrics. Vermont has the lowest vacancy rate in the country among rental homes and the second lowest among owner homes, according to vacancy rate indicators from the U.S. Census Bureau.    

Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) programs are available to help moderate-income Vermonters have an opportunity to become homeowners. In addition to its affordable mortgage and down payment assistance programs, VHFA has also launched its Missing Middle Income Homeownership Development Program to provide subsidies and incentives for homebuilders to construct or rehabilitate modest homes affordable to homebuyers at 120% area median income or lower.

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