Eager to buy a home in Vermont but daunted by the prices, Dechen Sirianni was open to creative solutions.
Sirianni was in temporary digs in a hostel in Vershire when he learned about Local Deeds, a program that the nonprofit Woodstock Community Trust started in January. Modeled closely after an initiative called Vail InDEED in the eponymous resort town in Colorado, Local Deeds helps homebuyers with their down payment in exchange for a deed restriction that stipulates that a local worker must occupy the home.
To qualify, at least one occupant of the house must work an average of 25 hours a week or more within a 16-mile radius of Woodstock and use the house as a primary residence.
Local Deeds is one of many initiatives aimed at easing the housing crunch around Woodstock. The median sale price for a primary home in this touristy town reached $550,000 last year, according to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency.
“When I came up to interview, one of the very first things we talked about was, ‘Where are you going to live?'” Dechen Sirianni
The deed restriction is just fine with Sirianni, who was following a long-held dream when he moved to Vermont from Pennsylvania in February 2023 after a divorce. He had found a job as HR manager at the Woodstock Farmers’ Market, a grocery store in town, and he was more than happy to agree to the deed restriction in exchange for help buying his condo in Bridgewater.
“When I came up to interview, one of the very first things we talked about was, ‘Where are you going to live?'” Sirianni said. “Even in the interview process, they said, ‘It’s tough.'”
When he first moved to Vermont, the only shelter he could find was a bedroom in the nonprofit Stagecoach Stop Hostel, a Vershire farmhouse that also houses a community center and a library. He shared a kitchen and bathroom with a rotating cast of three or four other guests. The hour-long commute between Vershire and Woodstock was grueling, especially in winter, and in March 2023, Sirianni moved to an inn in Quechee. He paid $2,500 for each of the next 10 months there, occupying a bridal suite with no kitchen.
In January, Sirianni met local housing activist Jill Davies, a board member of the Woodstock Community Trust, when she gave a presentation about Local Deeds at the Woodstock Farmers’ Market. Davies and Sirianni worked with a real estate agent, a lawyer and Mascoma Bank so he could buy a two-bedroom condo for $198,000. The trust contributed 16 percent of the purchase price, about $30,000, in exchange for the deed restriction.
He closed on the condo in March. It occupies the top floor of a former ski lodge and includes an outdoor deck and two bedrooms.
“It’s so perfect for me,” Sirianni said. “It’s peace and quiet. And the view is amazing.”
Steve Palmer and Allison Greene, who have two elementary school-age kids, rented a home in Woodstock village for seven years. When the owner decided to sell, she told them first so they’d have an opportunity to buy, Palmer said.
Greene teaches fifth grade at the Prosper Valley School in Pomfret. Palmer works as the media director for a New York City-based nonprofit that combats lymphatic diseases.
“Post COVID, with housing prices going through the roof, we were afraid we weren’t going to be able to stay in town,” Palmer said.
They bought the place with help from Local Deeds, which contributed 16 percent of the condo’s value toward their down payment. Palmer said they would have had trouble coming up with that down payment on their own.
Vail launched Vail InDEED in 2018. The program, run by the town, has secured more than 1,000 deed restrictions, awarding 16 to 20 percent of a property’s appraised value in exchange for a requirement they be occupied by year-round or seasonal local workers. Vail has about 4,000 residents, and Woodstock has 3,000.
Local Deeds is similar, providing a one-time cash payment in exchange for a restriction that requires a local worker to live in the home, apartment or condo in Woodstock or four surrounding towns. The program started in January and has taken off faster than Davies anticipated, she said in an interview. As of mid-September, it contributed funds for 14 housing units, home to 21 local workers and eight school-age children. The program has contributed a total of $700,000 in down-payment assistance.
“When we started, we thought we’d like to do one a month, but we have surpassed that,” Davies said.
The Woodstock Community Trust funds the program with proceeds from grants and private donations, many from local property owners. Right now, it has enough money to assist with down payments for another five or six properties, Davies said.
The Town of Woodstock is also working on solutions to the local housing crisis. In a pair of votes in August, local residents upheld a cap on short-term rentals in the village but repealed one in the rest of the town.
The town’s Economic Development Commission has created four programs that provide incentives to property owners who add housing for workers. One, Lease to Locals, helps fund conversions of short-term rentals to long-term leases for local workers.
Davies has been spreading the word through visits to major local employers, such as the Woodstock Inn & Resort, Woodstock Farmers’ Market, and the local school district. Superintendent Sherry Sousa said prices have simply eclipsed what educators can pay. She’s lost several prospective hires because of this.
“It’s so expensive to live in our community. I don’t know how a new family could do it,” said Sousa, who bought her house 26 years ago. “I’m the highest-paid educator in the district, and I couldn’t buy a house in Woodstock now.”
Five educators in her district have used the program to purchase homes.
There’s still a big housing shortage to address. The Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development reported in August that Vermont needs as many as 36,000 new homes by 2029 in order to meet demand.
“There are a lot of homeowners who want to sell to people who are going to maintain the community.” Jill Davies
Located near the Killington resort, with an historic downtown, Woodstock faces an extra-tight supply because it’s popular with second-home owners, who own about a quarter of Vermont’s housing stock, according to the VHFA. Resort towns such as Woodstock, Dorset and Stowe are particularly stressed by high prices and a large proportion of second homes and short-term rentals.
Davies said local property owners get it.
“There are a lot of homeowners who want to sell to people who are going to maintain the community,” Davies said. “People are very aware of how many second-home owners there are in the community and what it’s like to live next door to a house that is dark most of the time.”
Any town that can raise the money for the down payments can adopt the program, she said. She credited officials in Vail and in Big Sky, Mont., which has a similar program called Good Deeds, with helping Woodstock get its program off the ground.
“It’s an amazing community,” she said of the nonprofits that are working to increase housing in resort towns. “People share documents and tell you their process and help you with your issues.”
Davies was recently invited to talk to city officials in Newport, on the shore of Lake Memphremagog, about Local Deeds. Officials there are working on a long-term redevelopment plan.
“We are fascinated onlookers who would like to try to emulate some of what they have been doing,” Rick Ufford-Chase, executive director of Newport Downtown Development, said in an interview.
He acknowledged that Newport, a city of 4,000 with a high poverty rate, might not have as many private donors as Woodstock, a busy resort town. Woodstock locals have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to economic development and housing efforts.
“It’s not likely we’re going to do it all with wealthy donors,” Ufford-Chase said of the redevelopment. “But there is potential for us to raise money, and there is public funding available.”
The home shared by Palmer and Greene is a condo that’s half of a duplex. Kristi Clark, a social worker, rented the other side with her two kids for years before buying her apartment through Local Deeds. The two families are close friends.
When she heard the home was going to be sold, Clark, a Woodstock native, assumed she would have to move to another town, uprooting her kids.
“I never thought I would own a house in my entire life,” Clark said.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Home Run | A program that helps local workers buy houses in Woodstock is a hit”
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2024.
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