Anyone in Maine

MorrisonCorner said:

Which... fresh from my foray south... the tiny towns of the north central hill country utterly lack. In fact, I never did see a grocery store. Couple of small, very pricey, country stores... but narry a single chain store. People on this forum write of shopping at wal mart. Not happening from these towns. A minimum of a 3 hour drive, one way, to find a Wal Mart.

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Not true everywhere southish..heh. There is a Wal Mart here in Rutland, there is a Wal Mart Supercenter one hour away in Claremont, NH. Glens Falls NY is an hour away, plenty of shopping there. An hour south and you have Bennington and Brattleboro, again plenty of shopping there. Im in central Vermont, and there is plenty of things within an hour drive of here. Rutland is about 1 - 2 hours away from most every place in Vermont, except for the northeast kingdom.

Land is considerably less expensive, but there are NO jobs. For work you can expect to commute an hour and half or more over poorly maintained roads... in the dead of a VT winter, where like as not it will be snowing and blowing.

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Actually, the roads here are GREAT compared to Massachusetts. Within an hour of the snow starting, the trucks are out keeping the roads in good condition. I was really impressed.

But anyone looking at these small Vermont towns would do well to take a good look at the property taxes.. and where they're expected to go, and their own abilities to manage when you're so far out there that just fetching groceries becomes a day long chore.

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Property taxes, yep. They are awful here. So is land and housing. There is an A-frame chalet here on half an acre, going for 105k, the house is tiny. Most places here go for 150 - 200k without anything more than a lot.


On an unrelated note, Ive been drooling over your farm and website for some months now , you are the reason Ive decided to go with Icelandic sheep when I have things ready for them..and your advice to people just starting out, and the encouragement to try, has been VERY helpful to me. Thanks