Part I looked at the story Vermonters are increasingly being told about housing: short-term rentals, second homes, seasonal properties, camps, hunting cabins, oversized homes, empty nesters and spare bedrooms are all becoming part of the discussion about where Vermont’s housing has gone.
The stories are real. The dates are real. The people making those arguments are real. The next question is whether the explanation survives contact with the underlying public records, housing studies and policies that have shaped Vermont’s housing market.
In only a few months, the public conversation has moved increasingly toward what individual Vermonters are doing with property they already own. That makes it reasonable to examine the other side of the equation: what Vermont government has done with land-use regulation, property taxation, education finance, development policy, housing subsidies and population planning.
Before looking down the hallway at somebody’s empty bedroom, it makes sense to look at the policies attached to the front door.
Vermont Did Not Arrive Here by Accident
Vermont’s housing market did not develop independently of government policy. For decades, state law has influenced where development can occur, how projects are reviewed, how property is assessed and taxed, how schools are financed through property, how municipalities plan for growth and where the state wants new housing concentrated.
Act 250 created Vermont’s statewide development-review framework. Act 60 reorganized education finance after the Brigham decision and established a statewide system in which property wealth could no longer determine a town’s education tax rate in the way it had before 1997. The Vermont Department of Taxes describes Act 60 as the legislation that made education funding more equitable across towns and introduced mechanisms such as the Common Level of Appraisal. (Vermont Department of Taxes)
Act 68 then changed Vermont’s reappraisal system by requiring municipalities to conduct full reappraisals on a six-year cycle unless the State approves a longer period. The Department of Taxes says that requirement took effect January 1, 2025. (Vermont Department of Taxes)
Act 181 changed Vermont’s planning and Act 250 framework again, including temporary exemptions intended to allow certain housing projects to proceed without Act 250 review in designated areas. The Agency of Commerce and Community Development described those exemptions as a way to allow housing to be built “faster and more affordably” while the broader Act 181 system is implemented. (Vermont Commerce Agency)
Act 73 created additional changes to education finance, assessment administration and property classifications, including a separate nonhomestead residential category. Portions of that framework have since been revised or delayed, which is another reason VT4VT is tracking what ultimately reaches taxpayers rather than stopping with the language of the original bills. (Vermont Legislature)
These laws were enacted at different times for different purposes. None, by itself, explains Vermont’s housing problems. Together, however, they establish a fairly simple fact: the State has spent decades shaping the rules under which Vermont housing is built, financed, assessed and taxed.
The State itself acknowledges that connection whenever it changes those rules specifically to encourage more construction. Act 250 exemptions, development incentives, infrastructure programs, designated growth areas and regulatory reforms only make sense as housing policy if regulation and public investment affect what gets built in the first place.
More Than $700 Million Went Into Housing
The money deserves the same examination. The State’s 2026 Vermont Housing Targets Report says that between fiscal years 2021 and 2026, more than $700 million in state and federal funds was invested in housing-unit creation across Vermont. The report says that influx of public money may help explain the increase in units recorded in 2024, particularly multifamily housing. (Vermont Legislature)
The same report’s preliminary dashboard counted 2,092 new units in 2022, 2,171 in 2023, 3,057 in 2024 and 1,598 in 2025. The State cautions that those figures are still being refined and should not yet be considered final, but the underlying question does not depend upon squeezing the data into a slogan. (Vermont Legislature)
More than $700 million was committed to housing-related activity. Taxpayers should be able to see what that money purchased. The $700 million cannot simply be divided by the number of houses built. The State’s own description includes a much broader collection of investments, and housing programs can finance infrastructure, rehabilitation, affordable housing, loans and other activities in addition to newly constructed units.
That makes the next stage of the VT4VT investigation fairly straightforward. We want to identify which programs received the money, which agencies administered it, which developers and nonprofit organizations received assistance, how much represented grants versus financing, how much went to infrastructure or rehabilitation, and how many genuinely new units resulted. That accounting will tell Vermonters far more than simply repeating the $700 million number.
The 40,000-Home Number Was Already Being Challenged
Before VT4VT began following the summer’s housing headlines, another Vermont researcher had already gone underneath one of the most frequently repeated numbers in the debate.
On April 14, 2026, Alexsys Thompson published “Vermont’s 40,000 Home Problem: When the Math Doesn’t Math,” tracing the 40,000-home figure back through Vermont Housing Finance Agency projections, migration data and the assumptions used to estimate future housing demand. Her investigation did not argue that Vermont has no housing problems. It asked a narrower question: how reliable is the number being used to describe the size of the shortage, and how sensitive is that number to the assumptions underneath it? Alexsys Thompson
The underlying state records confirm that the target is based on projections rather than a physical count of 40,000 missing houses. In January 2023, VHFA published an estimate that Vermont would need 30,000 to 40,000 additional year-round homes by 2030 to meet expected demand and normalize vacancy rates. The current Housing Needs Assessment uses multiple scenarios as well. Its statewide 2025–2030 housing-target appendix produces a lower target of 27,867 homes and an upper target of 41,185, depending substantially on assumptions about future household growth. Vermont Housing Finance Agency.
That range is important because a housing target is not the same thing as an inventory count. It is the output of a model containing assumptions about household formation, migration, vacancy, homelessness, housing losses and other conditions. Change the assumptions and the projected number changes.
Thompson’s article became more relevant after publication. On May 1, she updated it with an on-record assessment from Joe Ament, an assistant professor at the University of Vermont whose work includes ecological economics and housing affordability. Ament questioned a model in which relatively small changes in assumptions could produce substantially different policy implications, arguing that when “small changes to the assumptions dramatically change the outcomes,” the model should be reconsidered. That is Ament’s assessment, reported by Thompson, rather than a conclusion VT4VT is adopting as its own.
Ament’s involvement in Vermont’s housing debate did not end with that comment. On May 7, the House Committee on General and Housing heard his testimony specifically on housing demand and construction, and the Legislature posted both a housing policy brief and housing supply-cost presentation from him. The committee record therefore independently establishes that a UVM researcher was questioning prevailing housing-supply assumptions in legislative testimony shortly after Thompson’s April investigation. Vermont Legislature — House Committee on General and Housing.
That does not make Thompson or Ament the final word on Vermont’s housing needs. Ament’s broader housing work has itself drawn criticism from other economists, which is another reason VT4VT should not substitute one expert opinion for another. The useful part for this investigation is that the central housing number was already being challenged from more than one direction, and the underlying state documents give us something concrete to test. Seven Days
The question for VT4VT is therefore not whether the 40,000-home estimate is “true” or “false” because somebody says so. We need to reconstruct the projection ourselves: what data went into it, what assumptions produced the lower and upper scenarios, what changed between successive Housing Needs Assessments, what migration data was available when policymakers relied on the number, and whether later data caused the State to revisit the assumptions already incorporated into housing and land-use policy.
Direct Impact of Regulation on Building
A Vermont Futures Project presentation states that of the $616,500 median price of a newly built Vermont home in 2023, $171,387 would be attributable to regulation. The presentation arrives at that figure by applying a National Association of Home Builders national estimate of regulatory costs as a share of home price to Vermont’s median new-home price. It is therefore an estimate derived from a national percentage, not a Vermont-specific audit of permit fees, Act 250 costs, wastewater requirements, zoning delays, required studies or financing costs caused by regulatory delay. Vermont Economic Action Plan
That does not make the number useless. It tells us what the number actually measures, and it gives VT4VT another question to follow: what does regulation actually add to the cost of building a house in Vermont? If regulation is being offered as a major explanation for Vermont housing costs, Vermonters should be able to see the Vermont-specific components behind the claim.
What Happens When the Market Builds Too Much?
Let’s look around the country for worthwhile examples that tell the story Vermont needs to hear. Austin was once the fastest-growing of America’s 25 largest cities, and its metro remained one of the nation’s fastest-growing through the following decade, making it a useful real-world stress test and a sharp contrast to what Vermont is experiencing. (Census) Pew found that Austin added roughly 120,000 housing units between 2015 and 2024, increased its housing stock about 30 percent, reformed zoning and permitting, and saw median rent fall from $1,546 in December 2021 to $1,296 in January 2026. Pew also documents major affordable-housing bonds and other public interventions, so Austin cannot honestly be reduced to either “deregulation solved it” or “subsidies solved it.” Both private construction and public policy were operating at the same time. The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Fort Worth shows a similar dynamic from a slightly different angle. Demand did not disappear; renters were still moving into thousands of units. But construction had run far enough ahead of demand that occupancy remained weak and concessions became increasingly common.
These two fast-growing Texas markets show why asking rent is not always the same thing as the rent a new tenant effectively pays. In supply-heavy markets, apartment owners increasingly compete with free months, waived fees, moving incentives and gift cards rather than immediately cutting the stated monthly rent. RealPage reported concessions on 37 percent of stabilized Austin units in July 2026, with an average discount of 15.2 percent, while Fort Worth entered its list of the highest-concession large markets earlier in the year. Fort Worth still absorbed more than 1,500 apartments in the final quarter of 2025, but occupancy entered 2026 at only 92.8 percent. That is not an absence of demand; it is evidence that supply can outrun the market at the price and pace developers anticipated. RealPage
Who Sets the Rent?
Austin and Fort Worth raise another question about the numbers used to describe housing costs. When vacancy increases, apartment owners do not always respond by simply lowering the advertised monthly rent. They can offer free months, waive fees, provide moving allowances or give prospective tenants cash-equivalent incentives while leaving the stated rent largely intact. That can create a significant difference between the advertised rent and the effective rent actually paid by a new tenant.
At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice has challenged another part of the apartment-pricing system. DOJ sued RealPage and several major apartment operators, alleging that competing landlords supplied nonpublic pricing, lease and occupancy information to a common revenue-management system that was then used to generate rent recommendations. DOJ alleged that the arrangement reduced independent competition between landlords and could discourage the kinds of price reductions that would ordinarily occur when apartments compete for tenants. DOJ
Several major property managers have since entered settlements or consent decrees requiring changes in how pricing information and revenue-management systems are used. Those cases do not establish that every landlord using RealPage participated in improper rent-setting, and RealPage also provides ordinary property-management, accounting and resident-service software that is separate from its revenue-management products. The distinction is important as VT4VT begins looking at which housing-management systems are actually used in Vermont.
Austin and Fort Worth are useful because they show how quickly housing conditions can change after projections, investment decisions and construction are already underway. Vermont is making its own housing decisions around long-range population and housing targets, which brings the investigation back to the assumptions behind those targets.
Housing Is Also Part of a Population Strategy
Housing policy is also tied directly to Vermont’s economic and demographic strategy.
The Vermont Futures Project has established a goal of growing Vermont to approximately 802,000 residents by 2035 while increasing the state’s non-seasonal housing stock to 350,000 units. Its own economic dashboard describes the population and housing targets as core components of its economic strategy, while its housing work says increasing the housing stock to 350,000 units would create capacity for a population of roughly 802,000. (Vermont Futures Project)
The Vermont Housing Finance Agency reaches the population question from another direction. Its housing-target methodology says Vermont’s low birth rate makes net migration the most likely source of labor-force growth, and that housing availability will therefore be important in supporting migration and expanding the workforce. (Vermont Housing Finance Agency)
VHFA’s longer-range analysis goes further. Under its higher-growth scenario, the agency says substantially more housing would encourage higher net migration and expand the workforce, while its midpoint scenario similarly anticipates housing growth supporting additional migration. (DHCD and VAPDA)
The policy sequence is therefore contained in the planning documents themselves. Vermont needs workers, population growth is seen as one way of adding workers, those people require housing, and additional housing capacity is expected to support migration. There is still a separate economic question: why would those people move here?
Vermont Asked That Question Before
Vermont studied employee recruitment years before the current housing debate reached this intensity.
The Employee Relocation Tax Credit Study Committee reported in 2016 on the obstacles employers encountered while attempting to recruit people to Vermont. Its findings included a lack of appropriate housing for middle-income households, but housing was not the only issue. The report also identified employment opportunities for spouses and family members and the limited number of alternative employers available when somebody relocated for a particular job. (Vermont Legislature)
Those findings are useful because they prevent housing from becoming a substitute explanation for every demographic and workforce problem Vermont faces. A person can have a place to live and still decide that Vermont does not offer the income, career mobility, business opportunity or family circumstances necessary to make the move work.
Building a thousand apartments does not automatically create a thousand careers, and adding a thousand residents does not automatically improve government finances if providing services to those additional residents also creates new public costs. Housing is part of the economic equation. It is not the entire equation.
Now Return to the Seasonal Home
While the State has invested heavily in housing production and developed policies intended to increase both housing and population, the public discussion has increasingly focused on housing that already exists. That includes seasonal homes, second homes, camps and short-term rentals.
Vermont Housing Commissioner Alex Farrell recently supplied an important piece of historical context. Speaking about Vermont’s roughly 50,000 seasonally vacant homes, Farrell said the role of seasonal housing “really hasn’t changed” and that seasonal housing represents a smaller portion of Vermont’s housing stock today than it did in 1990. His explanation of what did change was much simpler: Vermont stopped building enough housing. (https://www.wcax.com)
That does not settle the debate over second homes or seasonal properties. It changes the question. If Vermont had seasonal homes when housing supply was adequate, and seasonal properties make up a smaller percentage of the housing stock today than they did in 1990, their existence alone cannot explain how Vermont arrived at the current market.
The State should be able to separate properties that could realistically become year-round homes from camps without year-round water, septic capacity, insulation or other basic infrastructure. Farrell himself made that distinction when discussing the new treatment of certain second homes. (https://www.wcax.com) A seasonal camp and an available year-round house are not interchangeable units.
The Same Problem Exists With Short-Term-Rental Numbers
The 2025 Vermont Housing Needs Assessment reported that more than 12,000 entire homes were actively used as short-term rentals during at least one night in January 2024. Legislative testimony in 2026 described approximately 16,000 properties appearing as active STR listings at some point during 2025, with about 12,000 active in the highest individual month. (Vermont Outside)
Those numbers tell us how many properties appeared in short-term-rental data. They do not tell us how many were formerly year-round rentals, how many were already seasonal properties, how many are owner-occupied for part of the year, how many could reasonably become permanent residences, or how many are located in the places where year-round housing demand is greatest.
A count of 12,000 short-term rentals is therefore not the same thing as identifying 12,000 houses that would otherwise be available to Vermont families.
The same applies to Vermont’s nearly 50,000 seasonally vacant homes. A Census classification identifying seasonal, recreational or occasional use does not mean 50,000 conventional year-round homes are sitting unused and waiting for permanent residents. (https://www.wcax.com) Those distinctions should survive the trip from a dataset to a headline.
Follow the Organizations and the Money
Housing policy in Vermont now involves a substantial network of state agencies, nonprofits, researchers, developers, housing trusts, banks, employers, foundations, advocacy organizations and journalists.
VHFA produces major housing research used by policymakers. The Vermont Futures Project advocates population, workforce and housing-growth targets. Let’s Build Homes supports policies intended to increase housing production. Better (Not Bigger) Vermont argues for a different approach to growth and existing housing. The Vermont Short-Term Rental Alliance challenges some of the claims made about the effects of STRs. These organizations do not share the same agenda, and their disagreement is part of the story.
VT4VT’s next step is to document how the work is funded and how research moves through the public-policy process. Funding does not establish whether a conclusion is correct or incorrect, but it tells readers who commissioned the work, who supported the organization producing it and what institutional interests are participating in the debate.
When a study establishes a housing target, readers should know who requested it and who paid for it. When an advocacy organization promotes legislation using that study, readers should be able to see who funds the organization. When an expert becomes a recurring source in the housing debate, readers should know the institution that employs that expert.
The same standard applies to journalism. If a specialized reporting project receives outside funding to cover housing, that relationship belongs in the record just as government grants, foundation funding and industry support belong in the record elsewhere.
VT4VT will trace those connections only where the records establish them. The working path is money → research → advocacy → media → legislative testimony → legislation → taxes and regulation. Where the public record connects two parts of that chain, we will document it. Where it does not, we will not invent the connection.
The Question Is Still Why
None of this requires pretending Vermont does not have serious housing problems. The State’s own research documents high housing costs, low vacancy rates, homelessness and affordability problems, while recent production remains below the targets policymakers have established. (Vermont Commerce Agency)
The unresolved question is what caused those conditions and which policies will actually improve them. Before Vermont decides that an Airbnb, a family camp, a second home or an empty bedroom is the explanation, it is worth examining the institutions that have spent decades regulating land, structuring property taxes, directing development and spending public money on housing.
Part III will begin following that trail: who received the money, who produced the research, who funded the advocacy and how those ideas moved into Vermont law.
The homeowner has been asked to explain what happened to the house. Government, researchers, advocacy organizations and everyone else shaping the housing market should be prepared to answer the same question.
What did you do with the house?
Sources and Further Reading
Vermont Housing Finance Agency — “30,000 to 40,000 more Vermont homes needed by 2030,” January 25, 2023. This is the original VHFA source for the 30,000–40,000 housing-need range and says Vermont would need 5,000–6,700 additional year-round homes per year to meet expected demand and normalize vacancy rates.
VHFA — 30,000 to 40,000 more Vermont homes needed by 2030Alexsys Thompson — “Vermont’s 40,000 Home Problem: When the Math Doesn’t Math,” April 14, 2026; updated May 1, 2026. Thompson traces the 40,000-home figure through VHFA’s high and low scenarios, migration data, vacancy assumptions and Act 181. Her May 1 update includes Joe Ament’s on-record criticism of a model whose policy outcome changes substantially when assumptions move.
Vermont’s 40,000 Home Problem: When the Math Doesn’t MathVermont Legislature, House Committee on General and Housing — Joe Ament testimony and materials, May 7, 2026. The committee agenda identifies Joe Ament, Assistant Professor of Ecological Economics at UVM, testifying on “Housing demand and construction,” and the Legislature posted his Housing Policy Brief and Housing Supply-Cost PowerPoint.
Vermont Legislature — Joe Ament documents, May 7, 2026Vermont Futures Project — Vermont Economic Action Plan, “Costs of Regulation on New Construction Home Prices.” This is the direct source for the $616,500 median new-home price and $171,387 estimated regulatory cost. The presentation itself explicitly cautions that the underlying NAHB data come from developers and builders around the country and that the exact Vermont regulatory cost will differ.
National Association of Home Builders — “Government Regulation in the Price of a New Home.” This is useful as background on the national methodology underlying regulatory-cost estimates. NAHB’s 2021 study was based on separate surveys of land developers and single-family builders and estimated regulatory costs at 23.8% of the final price of a typical new single-family home.
NAHB — Government Regulation in the Price of a New HomeAustin and Fort Worth
U.S. Census Bureau — Population Trends in Incorporated Places: 2000 to 2013. This supports the sentence that Austin was once one of America’s fastest-growing large cities. The Census report states that among the 25 largest U.S. cities in 2013, Austin was the fastest-growing between 2010 and 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau — Population Trends in Incorporated Places: 2000 to 2013The Pew Charitable Trusts — “Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents,” March 18, 2026. Pew reports that Austin added approximately 120,000 housing units from 2015 through 2024, increasing housing stock 30%; median rent fell from $1,546 in December 2021 to $1,296 in January 2026. It also documents zoning, permitting, parking, ADU and affordable-housing interventions.
Pew — Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down RentsZillow Research — April 2026 Rental Report. Zillow says rental supply had outpaced demand and reports concessions on 63.8% of Austin rental listings in April 2026. Zillow explicitly links high concession rates to the recent apartment-construction boom.
Zillow — April 2026 Rental ReportZillow Research — June 2026 Rental Report. This is the best source for our distinction between advertised and effective rent. Zillow says 39.7% of U.S. rental listings offered concessions, defines concessions as items such as free rent and waived fees, and states that for renters receiving them, the real cost can be lower than the asking rent suggests. It also reports Austin rents down year over year.
Zillow — June 2026 Rental ReportRealPage — “Markets with Apartment Demand in 4th Quarter,” early 2026. RealPage reports that Fort Worth absorbed just over 1,500 units in Q4 2025, while occupancy was only 92.8% at the beginning of 2026, among the lowest of the 50 largest markets. This supports the point that demand can remain positive while construction still outruns market absorption.
RealPage — Fort Worth Apartment Demand, Q4 2025RealPage — “U.S. Apartment Concessions May 2026.” RealPage says Austin remained among the highest-concession markets, while Fort Worth entered the top 10 in May. It also reports average discounts among high-concession markets in roughly the 10%–15.5% range.
RealPage — U.S. Apartment Concessions, May 2026RealPage — “Market Concessions July 2026.” This supports the later Austin figure. RealPage reports an average Austin concession depth of 15.2% in July 2026.
RealPage — Market Concessions, July 2026
RealPage and the Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice — “Justice Department Sues RealPage for Algorithmic Pricing Scheme that Harms Millions of American Renters,” August 23, 2024. This is the foundational source. DOJ alleged that competing landlords supplied RealPage with nonpublic, competitively sensitive information about rents, lease terms and vacancies, and that RealPage’s software generated pricing recommendations using competitors’ information. DOJ also alleged that RealPage sought to minimize price decreases and renter concessions. These are DOJ allegations from the complaint, not independent VT4VT findings.
DOJ — RealPage lawsuit announcementU.S. Department of Justice — Amended RealPage complaint adding six major landlords, January 7, 2025. DOJ added Greystar, LivCor, Camden, Pinnacle/Cushman & Wakefield, Willow Bridge and Cortland, alleging participation in the rent-pricing and information-sharing scheme.
DOJ — Six landlords added to RealPage caseU.S. Department of Justice — RealPage proposed settlement, November 24, 2025. DOJ says the proposed settlement would restrict RealPage from sharing competitively sensitive information and aligning competitors’ pricing.
DOJ — RealPage proposed settlementU.S. Department of Justice — Greystar proposed settlement and final judgment. DOJ announced the proposed Greystar settlement August 8, 2025; the federal court entered the final judgment on March 2, 2026. The restrictions include use of algorithms based on competitors’ sensitive data and sharing competitively sensitive information with competitors.
DOJ — Greystar settlement announcement
DOJ — Greystar final judgmentU.S. Department of Justice — LivCor proposed consent decree, December 2025. The proposed decree restricts use of anticompetitive pricing algorithms based on competitors’ sensitive data and prohibits sharing such information.
DOJ — LivCor proposed consent decreeU.S. Department of Justice — Willow Bridge proposed settlement, July 6, 2026. DOJ says the decree would prohibit algorithmic coordination and competitively sensitive information sharing.
DOJ — Willow Bridge proposed settlementU.S. Department of Justice — Pinnacle proposed consent decree, September 4, 2026. DOJ describes this as another resolution of information-sharing and algorithmic-coordination allegations in the same RealPage enforcement action.
DOJ — Pinnacle proposed consent decreeU.S. Department of Justice — RealPage master case page. This is probably the best single reference for readers who want the court filings, settlements, proposed judgments and subsequent case developments in one place.
DOJ — U.S. and Plaintiff States v. RealPage Inc. case file
Part I and the rest of the series are available at the VT4VT Newsstand.
Support Independent Vermont Research
VT4VT keeps these stories, public-record investigations and research free for everyone.
VT4VT is part of Fort Aldrich Incorporated, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
If you find this work valuable, support VT4VT with a paid subscription through Substack or make a tax-deductible donation through VT4VT Donate. Your support helps fund public-record collection, data analysis, research and the tools we are building for Vermonters.
You can also support the work by mailing a check or money order payable to:
Fort Aldrich Incorporated
P.O. Box 302
Northfield, VT 05663
Please note VT4VT in the memo on your payment if you would like your contribution directed to the VT4VT program.
Keep the stories free. Support the research. Make a donation to the cause.
Can’t donate? Help investigate. Submit public records, grand lists, reassessment information or sourced research and help us build the most comprehensive independent Vermont property-tax and public-policy database possible.
Support the VT4VT Newsstand — and help build Vermont’s independent public-record database. Visit VT4VT.com, complete the anonymous Vermont Reassessment Survey, and send VT4VT your municipality’s Grand List, reassessment notices and property-tax records so they can be added to the FY2027 statewide analysis.
Vermont Reassessment Survey
Submit a Grand List
