Tom Thompson

...you start counting the number of dead skunks you see and smell along the road. You know it's spring in Vermont when you head up to "the islands" to show lakeshore property and you wonder how crazy the ice fisherman is who drove is pickup truck out to ice fish, and he's the only one out of hundreds. You know it's spring in Vermont when you're showing that lakeshore home and everyone is looking around to see where the constant thunder is coming from on this clear day and you finally realize it is the ice grinding together as it melts and moves. Finally you know it's spring in Vermont when the newspaper features the pictures of the bikini clad SNOW skiers splashing across the water pond at the bottom of the ski slopes.

So spring is here. Bring on the buyers!

Most of the rest of the country probably isn't even aware of Vermont's Town Meeting Day vacation and traditions. Today is Town Meeting Day in Vermont. Schools are closed and it gives the kids an extra 2 days of vacation tacked on to their week of mid-winter vacation at the end of February. For over 200 years town meetings have been where the business of the towns has been conducted. The tradition is democracy in its truest sense. Everyone meets at the town hall - or as was done in Essex Junction last night at the school - to hash over the town budget and other items of interest. Everyone and anyone can speak and many usually do.

My most memorable meeting was in Colchester many years ago when the voice vote was very close. After a couple of attempts to get it right, with each side yelling their vote louder and louder. The moderator asked for a show of hands. There were so many people and all the hands didn't stay up the whole time they were counting that someone called for a "division of house", meaning "yeas" went to one side of the room and "nays" went to the other side. That way the numbers could be counted for certain. By then people's feelings were on edge and each side stood there glaring at each other across the room. When the vote was finally determined, the moderator told everyone to take their seats. My, was that uncomfortable for a lot of people to go back and sit next to the people they had just been glaring at across the room.

So where is the real estate in all this. Last night our town voted to sell two lots acquired througha tax sale. I might have buyers for them.

Most of the rest of the country probably isn't even aware of Vermont's Town Meeting Day vacation and traditions. Today is Town Meeting Day in Vermont. Schools are closed and it gives the kids an extra 2 days of vacation tacked on to their week of mid-winter vacation at the end of February. For over 200 years town meetings have been where the business of the towns has been conducted. The tradition is democracy in its truest sense. Everyone meets at the town hall - or as was done in Essex Junction last night at the school - to hash over the town budget and other items of interest. Everyone and anyone can speak and many usually do.

My most memorable meeting was in Colchester many years ago when the voice vote was very close. After a couple of attempts to get it right, with each side yelling their vote louder and louder. The moderator asked for a show of hands. There were so many people and all the hands didn't stay up the whole time they were counting that someone called for a "division of house", meaning "yeas" went to one side of the room and "nays" went to the other side. That way the numbers could be counted for certain. By then people's feelings were on edge and each side stood there glaring at each other across the room. When the vote was finally determined, the moderator told everyone to take their seats. My, was that uncomfortable for a lot of people to go back and sit next to the people they had just been glaring at across the room.

So where is the real estate in all this. Last night our town voted to sell two lots acquired througha tax sale. I might have buyers for them.

We had a real good thaw and rainstorm this last week and this weekend the market seems to have come alive with our office a beehive of activity, listings, multiple offers and good strong activity. Who knows but that stimulus may have lit a fire. Or it could be the pent up demand finally has an excuse to break loose. I got to get back to work. Two offers to present.

On my way home yesterday it dawned on me that another early sign of spring was here, frost heaves. For those of you not familiar with this north country phenomenon, it is a lift in the road that could be compared to a speed bump. Driving too fast over one could get you airborne or even do serious damage to you and your car. So it isn't unusual as these develop on our roads, to see a warning sign that says "frost heaves". It really makes you slow down.

Well, about 3 years ago an enterprising Vermonter who writes for Sports Illustrated decided to buy a basketball franchise and start a team here in Vermont. He quite astutely found a wonderful way around our famous billboard law that bans billboards- it also prevents us from using "deposit" or "sold" signs. Instead he named his team the Vermont Frost Heaves. He gets seasonal signs all over that state for free. Whether that has anything to do with it I don't know, but they have been ABA League Champs for 2 years in a row and the team seems to be doing o.k. financially. But I don't really know.

So I try to think how I can take a marketing lesson from this basketball example. Perhaps I should change our office name to Falling Rock Realty. Then we would get signs all over the country that say "Watch our for Falling Rocks". Any suggestions?

Although the snow keeps coming the market seems to be thawing a bit here in the north country. Over the weekend a couple homes that were just listed sold, one had 4 offers! Some statistics would also indicate that we might be seeing a change. The number of homes on the market has been increasing fairly dramatically for the last 4 years, until now. Five years ago our MLS listed 202 homes for sale in Chittenden County. Four years ago that number increased to 354, the next year, 460, and then 521 a year ago. Today, February 23, we had 522. That is hardly a significant increase compared to what we had been seeing. What is really interesting is to compare that to the number of homes we had on the market in the early to mid 90's when we saw the number of single family homes get over 1600.