Bethesda Family Relocates to Vermont: Anna White, 36, began looking for places in July when it became clear that schools in Bethesda, Maryland, where she now lives, would not reopen for in-person learning.

WINHALL, Vt. — From his post at the town dump, Scott Bushee spent the summer observing his new neighbors, transplants who pulled into his compound with heads full of rustic fantasy and license plates from New York and New Jersey.

Bushee is one of the half-dozen or so people who run the town of Winhall, Vermont, with a year-round population, before COVID-19, of 769. He is a cranky dude. That is his brand...

...Since then, the number of available single-family homes in Winhall and Stratton, the adjacent ski resort, has dropped to 29 from 129, its lowest level since 2003, according to Tim Apps, a Realtor with the Vermont Sales Group.

Anna White, 36, began looking for places in July when it became clear that schools in Bethesda, Maryland, where she now lives, would not reopen for in-person learning. The market she encountered was “a gold rush.”

“We would make an appointment to look at 10 houses on a Saturday, and they would be gone by 9 a.m.,” said White, who grew up in Vermont and left the state to go to college.

The pickings were so thin that at one point, to her husband’s dismay, she put in an offer on a battered-looking house whose older occupant was hoping to remain there...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/09/26/nation/virus-sent-droves-small-town-suddenly-its-not-so-small/?s_campaign=coronavirusnow:newsletter