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greenglasstree t1_j8saq6x wrote

Reply to comment by a_d_a_m_b_o_m_b in How Vermont’s Housing Crisis Got So Bad by punkthesystem

Ding ding ding.

People love to blame rich foreigners buying a vacation house, or an upper middle class Bostonian buying a single summer home, but the real culprit are billion dollar financial firms buying hundreds, if not thousands of houses for speculation.

Dr. Jane Everywoman from Boston who makes $200k a year as a pediatrician isn't the enemy.

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Intru t1_j8v52bl wrote

I think of that as a symptom not the cause. It's really death by a thousand cuts. We have exclusionary suburban focus zoning of the 1940s and 1950s , that bans or makes it impossible to build anything but single family housing in over 70% of residential zoned land. Preventing things like small mix used, boarding homes, hostels, duplex, triplexes, etc. Economic decline in large portions of the state's municipalities, shifting of job centers, disconnect between available stock and desired areas, car centric tourist development, bizantine building and safety codes. Rise in costs, etc. Speculative real estate markets and Airbnb are just another nail in the coffin of affordability.

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