Vermont’s Housing Shortage Is Actually 3 Different Problems
Vermont’s housing debate gets treated as a single supply problem, but it isn’t. Bryan Sell, a policy analyst and faculty member at Vermont State University’s Resort and Hospitality Management program, published an analysis on August 5, 2026, arguing that three structurally separate causes are driving the crisis, and that they affect different towns in different combinations.
His framework names the three causes as short-term rental conversion of existing housing stock, a workforce too old and too small to build out new housing, and a depopulation trend driven by falling birth rates and outmigration. Treating any one of these as the root cause, Sell argues, misdiagnoses what’s actually happening in most Vermont communities.
Short-Term Rentals Have Hollowed Out Tourist Towns
The short-term rental problem is most visible in Vermont’s ski towns. Landlords in resort communities have converted long-term rental units to vacation listings because the profit margin is higher.
83.4% of Killington’s housing stock sits vacant on a year-round basis, the highest vacancy rate of any Vermont town with a real year-round population.
That figure reflects near-total conversion of the town’s residential inventory to short-term vacation use. The Killington resort has responded by converting hotels into worker housing for its J-1 and H-2B visa workforce rather than relying on the private rental market at all.
The Build-Out Problem Isn’t Just Permitting
Vermont can’t simply permit its way out of the crisis. The second structural cause Sell identifies is a construction labor shortage driven by an aging workforce. Even if zoning and permitting were resolved tomorrow, the state lacks the tradespeople to execute a housing build-out at scale.
This constraint is largely invisible in the current policy debate, which focuses heavily on regulatory barriers and investor behavior.
Depopulation Compounds the Problem Differently
In a third category of Vermont towns, the core problem isn’t too many short-term rentals or too few builders. It’s that population is declining. Birth rates are dropping and residents are leaving, which means the demand picture in those communities looks entirely different from a ski town or a tight labor market city.
Sell’s argument is that state-level legislation designed to address one of these causes will either miss the point or make things worse in towns facing a different cause entirely.
What You Can Do Now
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Contact your Vermont state legislators at the Vermont Legislature’s member directory and ask them to support town-level housing diagnostic tools before passing blanket statewide mandates. Tell them one-size policy ignores Killington vs. Rural depopulation towns.
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Attend your town’s next selectboard or planning commission meeting. Ask which of the three causes (short-term rental conversion, construction workforce, or depopulation) your local officials believe is primary. Demand that any zoning or housing ordinance be matched to the actual local cause.
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Contact the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development at (802) 828-3217 and ask whether the agency’s current housing strategy distinguishes between tourist-town rental conversion, workforce capacity, and depopulation when allocating state housing funds.
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Read the full analysis at VTDigger and share it with local planning and housing advocates in your municipality before the next legislative session begins.
Sources
- A reality check for CT’s housing market — CT Mirror (2026-08-07)
VTDigger: Vermont’s Housing Crisis Isn’t One Problem, It’s Three Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development: State Housing Programs and Data Vermont Legislature: Member Directory and Contact Information