Montpelier, VT

AARP: 5 Best Places to Live the Simple Life

Where to find low costs, minimal stress, and lots of fun. by: Sarah Mahoney | from: AARP The Magazine | May 2010

Photo by Holly Harris/Getty Images

Montpelier, Vermont

Vibe: Norman Rockwell, with a twist of politics
Population: 7,800
Median housing price: $159,060
Average commute: 22 minutes
Average number of sunny days: 157 per year
Most relaxing way to spend an afternoon: World-class skiing less than an hour away, at Stowe
Simple fun for less than $10: Sampling a pastry at La Brioche Bakery & Café
Who knew?: Montpelier is the only state capital without a McDonald's restaurant.

It may be the smallest capital city in the United States—one local official affectionately refers to the intersection of Main Street, home to City Hall, and State Street, with the capitol, as "the corner of 'Walk' and 'Don't Walk' "—but there's plenty to do in Montpelier. First, there's politics, the local sport, as residents keep track of what's going on in the legislature. (Insiders say Democrats tend to get their coffee at Capitol Grounds Café, while Republicans favor the Coffee Corner.)

Then there's the city's active arts scene (locals say the town's relaxed pace and eclectic crowd fuel creativity). And music festivals abound. "On any given weekend I can listen to great local music—jazz, folk, Celtic fiddling—or I can see a play or go to a yard sale," says resident Roberta Harold, 56. "There's so much to do here, and the people are great. They're the kind of people who will come plow you out of a storm, no matter what."

To read the full article from AARP's May 2010 FIVE BEST PLACES TO LIVE THE SIMPLE LIFE, click on Logo:

Montpelier Vermont Homes for Sale

Stowe Vermont Homes for Sale

AARP Magazie has listed Montpelier, VT as One of the Top 5 Places to Live the Simple Life. The article lists low costs, minimal stress and lots of fun places to visit and things to do as the reasons why Montpelier is a great place to call home.

Over 300 cities were screened for characteristics including low unemployment, low cost of living, low traffic congestion, availability of cultural activies and outdoor recreation, amongst many other traits.

This community of 7,800 people boasts the smallest state capitol and is also the only state capitol which does not have a McDonalds!

Some experts thought we might see a drop in activity as the tax credit(s) ran out at the end of last month, but that doesn't appear to have happened in Central Vermont. Here are the numbers for May.

You can see that for the Montpelier real estate market, the Active/Sold Ratio is creeping downward. For May, there was roughly a 7.5 month supply of homes on the market. I've heard a rule of thumb that suggests an inventory of 5-7 months indicates a market in transition. 7-12 months' supply is a buyers' market-so the transition we may be seeing is one that starts to favor sellers slightly.

It wouldn't be too surprising to see the numbers for the Montpelier real estate market and other area towns be a little different, but there's a pretty wide spread here for the Active/Sold Ratio. Too wide to make any conclusions. On the whole, sellers can still reasonably expect houses to be on the market for 6-9 months, perhaps a year (I know...ouch!). The best ways to shorten that timeframe are to make sure homes are priced right, and to make sure that they look fantastic when they're shown.

Barre City and U-32 added some significant inventory in May. Incidentally, you see those two sales in U-32? Those were both mine, thank you very much. One was a fixer upper on 2 acres in Calais, and the other was a well-maintained 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch in Berlin.

If there are other numbers you'd like to see, feel free to make some suggestions. Anticipating that: I was going to put "Days on Market" for properties that closed, but there weren't enough sales in some of the towns to make that really meaningful. For example, the sales in U-32 were for $100,000 and $205,000. An average wouldn't tell a whole lot. Hmmm...maybe next month I'll do a 2 or 3 month running average Days on Market.

My hope is that you find these updates useful and (if you're a real estate junkie), even a little entertaining. If you know anyone else who might like to get an email or a hardcopy of these updates, just let me know.

If you or someone you know is thinking of buying or selling, keep me in mind. I am always thankful for recommendations.

Be Smart. Remember Ray.

Ok folks in Montpelier, if you haven't gotten your brand new 2010 reappraisal in the mail yet, it's a-comin'!

As you may know the state mandates each town to reassess when the assessed values fall to 80% of market values. In Montpelier, that happened a couple of years ago, but there were some, um, issues with that re-assessment. So it was done again in 2009.

When you get your new assessment, you're going to go bananas. (Keep reading for some comforting words.) Just remember that you can challenge the value. The city has a guideline, but basically you can challenge based only on these three criteria:

•1. You think the value is wrong. That's a pretty vague one, so more or less, if you want to challenge the assessment, you can.

•2. You don't think your property was fairly compared with others.

•3. There was some mistake in the assessment. As a personal example, the assessor called me earlier in the year asking about the deck on a rental property. There is no deck...but we did file a permit to build one. That's the kind of thing that if it shows up on the new assessment, I could challenge. Will I? I don't know...it partly depends on if I'm more ornery or more busy when the time comes for me to make that decision.

Just because your value is going up (and you can be pretty sure it's going up), that doesn't necessarily mean that your taxes are going up. Here's what I mean:

•1. The City of Montpelier figures out its budget

•2. Voters approve it (homeowners and renters)

•3. Add up ALL the assessed values to come up with the Grand List

•4. The new tax rate is the Grand List divided by the Voter-Approved-Budget

Hey, your tax rate is going to go down, yippee! Your tax bill probably isn't though.

Also, before you go sharpening your axes, let me just tell you that although I am an expert in Montpelier real estate, I do not represent homeowners in challenging assessments. If you ask VERY nicely, I'll pull comps for you, and then you can take them to your meeting. But you have to ask VERY nicely. And you have to tell your friends what a great realtor I am. Cookies help, too.

Well, it was bound to happen.

There has been a spate of break-ins of vacant properties in the Montpelier area, with the crooks stealing copper piping. I still don't quite get how that's a profitable crime to commit, but, well, I guess I'm just inexperienced in stealing things.

Single family homes and multi-family homes in Montpelier, Calais, and other towns have been the targets. The Montpelier Police Department has a suspect, and they are currently trying to determine if all, some, or none of the crimes can be attributed to this one suspect.

Moral of the story: If you have a vacant building, make sure it's locked, and check in on it from time to time. You might want to let a neighbor know to keep a lookout for cars (or pickup trucks in this case) parked in front.