Seven Days seems fairly straightforward: An old Vermont farmhouse, circa 1840, is available in Shelburne for near-immediate occupancy. It's a one-and-a-half-story, L-shaped farmhouse with wooden siding, a stone foundation, and a newer porch and addition that could be removed by the new owner. Asking price: free for the taking, provided you take it somewhere else.
One might assume that a free house would move quickly, given how Vermont's residential real estate market has boomed since the start of the pandemic. According to the Vermont Association of Realtors, the average sales price for a single-family home in January 2021 was $314,949 — more than 14 percent higher than in January 2020. But that early 2021 average reflected a slight cooling of the housing market since late last fall. In November, the average sales price for a single-family home was $352,537, more than 26 percent higher than the year before.