I get this question almost every week now, from buyers who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for rates to drop, from young professionals worried they've missed their window, and from people running the math and feeling like it doesn't work at 7% and up. Should I buy now at these rates, or should I wait?
The honest answer isn't "wait." It isn't "buy at any cost." It's something more useful, and it starts with a fact that most buyers watching mortgage rate headlines have missed. The Chittenden County market has shifted meaningfully in the buyer's favor over the past several months, and the tools available to make today's rates work are genuinely powerful. If you have been waiting for a better window to buy, that window may already be here, and it may not last past spring.
Here's what the current data actually shows, what has changed, and how to think about it.
The Market Has Quietly Become A Buyer's Market
Everything I'm about to say is grounded in current Chittenden County data as of late September 2026.
Active condo and single-family home inventory in Chittenden County is 484 (excluding mobile homes, since many are in parks and represent a different market segment). For reference, that number was 154 in April 2026. Inventory has more than tripled in six months. That hardly seems feasible.
239 of those 484 active listings have taken a price cut since going on the market. That's 49.4% of current inventory, or nearly half of active Chittenden County listings are now priced below where they started. Compare that to earlier this year when Vermont's price reduction rate was around 13.4%. The market's tolerance for aspirational pricing has evaporated.
Median days on market is now 54. In April it was 23 to 28 days across every price band. Homes are sitting more than twice as long as they were in spring.
In September, only 39 of the 139 closed sales (28%) sold for above the original list price. That's down from 37% in the spring. Buyer competition is softer, and the buyers who are active are getting closer to fair pricing.
Read those numbers together. Triple the inventory, half the listings taking price cuts, homes sitting twice as long, and fewer bidding wars. Buyers have more options and more leverage than they've had in years.
The town-level picture is even more striking. Of the towns with meaningful inventory, the highest price-reduction rates are Underhill (72.7% of listings have cut price), Essex Junction (70.8%), and Burlington (64.4%). Essex Junction, which I wrote about in July as the hottest market in Chittenden County, has since become one of the most negotiable. That's not a contradiction, but rather a changing market, and it's changing in favor of buyers who are willing to take their house hunt seriously now.
The Rate Story Is Grim, But The Tools Around It Are Better Than You Think
Yes, mortgage rates are higher than they have been in the past three years. As of yesterday, I saw 7.375% offered to a well-qualified buyer on a 30-year fixed mortgage. That’s a significant and tangible rise from a few weeks ago and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
Much to the surprise of most aspirational buyers, there are tools in today's market that materially change what those rates mean for your monthly payment, and lenders and sellers are both increasingly willing to explore them as effective solutions.
Rate buydowns are back and being encouraged. My lender partners are actively encouraging permanent rate buydowns right now by paying discount points to lower your rate for the life of the loan. But rather than the buyer paying out of pocket for points, sellers are often willing to fund these as part of a negotiation. That's a fundamentally different structure than the seller taking a price cut, and often a much better deal for the buyer.
Here's a real example from my own pipeline this month. I have a buyer who submitted an offer that included a $10,000 credit earmarked for a rate buydown rather than being taken directly off the purchase price. The result was a 0.375% rate reduction that saves them almost $150 more per month than offering $10,000 less on price would have. To match that monthly payment through a price reduction alone at the higher rate, the offer would have needed to be $25,000 lower. Instead, the seller netted $15,000 more and my buyer got the monthly relief. Both sides won because the money did more work as a rate buydown than it would have as a price cut.
That's the kind of creative math that works in today's market but wasn’t accessible in the spring's competitive frenzy. Buyers now have the leverage to structure deals like this. Six months ago, sellers wouldn't consider them because they had their choice of competitive offers.
Seller concessions beyond rate buydowns are more common. Closing cost credits, repair credits, appraisal gap coverage. Sellers who have been sitting on the market for months are more willing to negotiate on all of these fronts.
VHFA options remain a real advantage. As I wrote in the affordability report card, most qualifying buyers get rate improvements from VHFA rather than down payment assistance. On a $500,000 loan, even a half-point rate improvement saves roughly $180 a month.
Refinancing later is a real option, not a cliché industry slogan. I say this with a caveat because you must be able to comfortably afford the monthly payment for the long-term rather than stretching your budget hedging your bets that you will be refinancing at a better rate in the near future. If rates fall in the next 2-5 years, which many economists expect, you can refinance and reap the savings. You lock in today's home price, which is going to keep climbing, and reset the rate later.
Sellers Are Motivated In Ways They Haven't Been In Years
The other side of the buyer leverage story is what's happening to sellers. Homes that listed in spring or summer and haven't sold are now facing a specific set of pressures.
They have carried the property for months, paying mortgage, taxes, insurance, and utilities. They are looking at another Vermont winter with the home on the market. Their listing is stale, with a days-on-market count that raises questions in every buyer's mind. Many have already taken one or two price reductions and are watching the equity they had planned to leave with erode.
That combination produces motivated sellers. Two recent examples: 10 Logwood Circle in Essex took a $30,000 price cut and went under contract shortly after. 374 Flynn Avenue in Burlington took a $20,000 price reduction and also went under contract quickly. Buyers who were watching those listings before the cut waited, engaged after, and got homes at meaningfully better terms than they would have paid in the spring.
There are hundreds of active listings in Chittenden County right now with similar dynamics playing out. The buyers who are engaged in the market are finding real deals.
Why Waiting For Spring Is Often Worse Than Buying Now
The instinct many buyers have is to wait until spring, when rates might be lower and more inventory will come on the market. That reasoning is understandable but is short-sighted.
Typically in the spring, inventory grows but buyer competition grows much faster. Every buyer who spent the fall and winter on the sidelines returns simultaneously. The homes that come on the market are competed for aggressively. Multiple offers return, homes sell above asking, and sellers regain leverage almost immediately.
Even if rates fall meaningfully by then, the return of buyer competition typically eats the savings. A rate drop that saves $200 a month can be entirely offset by paying $30,000 more for the same home because you had to compete for it. That's not a hypothetical. That's what happens almost every spring in Chittenden County.
The current market is quiet by comparison. Fewer buyers means less competition. Sellers are willing to negotiate on price and terms. Inspection contingencies actually work the way they're supposed to. You can protect yourself with proper due diligence rather than waiving inspections to win a bidding war.
If you can afford the payment today and buy a home you'll be in for 5+ years, waiting for spring often costs you more than it saves.
Flexibility Is Where The Best Deals Are Found
One more piece of advice for buyers reading this. The buyers I see finding the best outcomes in today's market are the ones who stay flexible about geography, property type, and specific features.
If you have been fixated on Burlington but the math doesn't work at 7.375%, look at Winooski, Essex Junction, or Colchester. If you have been looking at single-family homes but the payment stretches you, look at townhomes or condos. If you have been ruling out homes that need cosmetic updates, reconsider. Those homes have less competition, more room to negotiate, and often more seller-funded concessions available.
The buyers who stay flexible about the specific home while staying firm about the payment they can comfortably afford are the ones getting real value in this market.
Who This Window Isn't Right For
Being honest about the case for buying now means being honest about who shouldn't.
If you're stretching to the absolute edge of what you qualify for at 7.375%, you should not buy right now unless a seller-funded buydown genuinely brings the payment into a comfortable range. Rates matter, and a payment that feels tight today will feel worse if any part of your financial picture changes.
If you might need to relocate within the next 3 years, the transaction costs of buying and selling can eat any benefit you'd get from ownership over that short window. Renting could be the right call.
If you don't have a down payment and closing cost reserves plus a healthy emergency fund on top, the buffer you need for old-Vermont-home surprises isn't there. Wait, save, and buy when you have real margin.
For everyone else, especially first-time buyers who have been waiting for a market that gives them room to think, this fall is the closest thing to that market we've seen in years.
The Bottom Line
The Chittenden County market has meaningfully shifted in the buyer's favor over the past six months. Triple the inventory, nearly half of active listings with price cuts, longer days on market, less bidding pressure, and motivated sellers who will actually negotiate. Combined with rate buydown tools that materially change what today's rates cost you each month, this is a real buyer's window.
The question isn't whether you can afford to buy at 7.375%. It's whether you can afford to wait until spring, when the buyers competing with you will have grown, sellers will have regained leverage, and prices will have kept climbing. For most buyers who can make the math work now with the tools available, the honest answer is that you shouldn't wait.
