Fleeing New Yorkers squeeze surrounding housing markets

Angel Garcia, a single father approved for a mortgage loan of $300,000, had high hopes in early 2020 of finding a house he could afford in his hometown of Stamford, Connecticut.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Within months, New Yorkers began fleeing the city and the surrounding area, snapping up houses. Home prices that already had been out of reach for many jumped higher. Garcia, who oversees security at Stamford’s government building, ended the year still living with his 3-yearold daughter in a Stamford rental.

“It’s so hard with all the competition out here and the prices, as they are now. They were already expensive,” said Garcia, who has a second job as a security guard.

An influx of people relocating to the state and in particular Fairfield County, on the New York state line, has been celebrated by many including Gov. Ned Lamont, who said in his State of the State address last week that it showed a desire for more spacious living arrangements and an appreciation of “Connecticut values.”

But it also has made it more difficult for many to find affordable housing in an area that rates among the country’s most unequal places in terms of income levels.

A shortage of affordable homes is being worsened by newcomers who often are buying homes quickly and with cash, said Joan Carty, president and chief executive officer of the Stamford-based Housing Development Fund, a nonprofit that finances development of affordable housing and provides loans to first-time homebuyers.

“We absolutely can see it.

And it’s just making, I think, the level of inequity more glaringly obvious,” she said.

One day late last month, there were just five singlefamily houses for sale under $400,000, with the

lowest priced at $325,000, in Stamford, which is 52 square miles and is considered more affordable than other Fairfield County communities, said Tammy Felenstein, executive vice president and managing director of sales at Brown Harris Stevens Connecticut LLC in Stamford.