Market booming
Cooped up NYC residents look to buy in rural expanse settings
Current real estate sales spike stems from a surge of buyers from New York City, where the COVID-19 pandemic has been concentrated.
The last time Laurie Hanenberg saw something like the real estate boom that’s occurring in the Catskills was shortly after 9/11.
The terror attack on the World Trade Center prompted a f lood of New York City residents to seek rural second homes or to relocate entirely. The current sales spike also stems from a surge of buyers from New York City, where the COVID-19 pandemic has been concentrated.
Many of those looking for homes, ranging from rustic cabins to ski condos to large spreads, are from Brooklyn, said Hanenberg, a veteran real estate agent who operates Hunter Windham Real Estate.
“There’s just a flurry of buyers,” she said.
That’s in contrast to the situation earlier this spring when the COVID-19 lockdown kept people from traveling and limited real estate activity largely to Zoom or Facetime house tours.
That led to pent-up demand, which was unleashed in the last week or so when the area went into phase two of easing restrictions and the restart of in-person house tours.
Buyers are paying full price, Hanenberg said, adding that one recent listing received four offers in a day.
“They are not even negotiating,” she said.
The Catskills may be particularly attractive to buyers from New York City and surrounding suburbs due to its relative closeness — many communities are two hours away or less.
There’s also a broad array of recreational activities, from golf to biking, hiking and fishing, as well as winter skiing and snowmobiling.
The fact that mortgage rates continue to be low and that people have been locked inside for months doesn’t hurt either.
“The kids just have to get outside,” Hanenberg said. “You can’t lock kids up for three months.”
Some of the new buyers will be full-time residents.
“A lot of them have spent a great deal of time locked in their smaller apartments and they have now telecommuted and they have found out from their jobs that they can (continue to) telecommute,” said Don Cummins. He is CEO of the Columbia-greene-northern Dutchess County MLS or multi-listing service, a catalog of real estate that’s for sale.
Cummins said they haven’t yet quantified sales for the month of June, so it was hard to pinpoint the precise amount of inventory or activity compared to, say, the same time a year ago.
Spring witnessed a significant statewide slowdown.
According to the state Association of Realtors, there was a
44.5 percent decrease in new listings — from 23,668 homes to 13,139 units in year-over-year comparisons.
Pending sales in May also dropped 47.3 percent from 14,224 sales in May 2019 compared to 7,500 sales during May 2020.
Closed sales declined 33.8 percent to 7,597 sales — down from 11,475 units in May 2019.
The median sale price, though, was unchanged in May’s year-overyear comparisons at $270,000.
And the average sale price for May was $376,542, up 2.9 percent from $365,796 in May 2019.
But those numbers will likely look far different in June.
The real estate website Zillow is reporting a national uptick in June, noting that buyers and sellers appear to be “adjusting to new norms.”
While the jump is national in scope, the website found that sales in the greater New York City area remained sluggish, fueling the idea that many downstaters may simply be locating to the north.
But real estate is moving again upstate.
“There are a bunch of houses that sat stagnant for a year that are selling,” said Bridget Leach, an agent with Gordon Hunter Mountain Realty in Tannersville.
Leach recently sold a house in the village of Hunter within 48 hours of it being listed. The price was around $475,000. Last year that would have been $375,000 she said. The prices of 600-square-foot mountainside condos at the base of the Hunter ski area are also going up from about $110,000 to $160,000 this year.
Sales are not just limited to traditional resort spots such as the towns of Hunter or Windham. Some downstate buyers are looking to southern Albany County properties in places like Ravena, Leach said.
Improvements in internet service have helped as well.
“High speed internet has become the ‘go to’ question as many have, due to COVID-19, discovered they no longer have to physically go to an office,” said Tracy Boomhower, with Country Views Realty in Earlton, not far from Ravena and Coxsackie.
“Speaking to a lot of them, they have discovered a way they can work from home,” Hanenberg said.
Certainly the process of buying a house has become different, Hanenberg said.
Before showing a home, she wipes surfaces down with Clorox and even opens the doors so clients don’t have to touch anything.
Either way, she said, “It’s good to be back at work.”