The Urban Exodus Is Upon Us
If you haven’t heard, the real estate market in the Rural Intelligence region is going crazy. That’s crazy in a good way, if you happen to be a real estate agent or looking to sell your home. And it may be that the mayhem turns into a positive for our towns and villages in the long run. The perfect storm of the pandemic, social unrest and the ability to work remotely has precipitated an exodus, primarily from Manhattan and Brooklyn, to our beautiful countryside.
The panicked search for rentals by New Yorkers desperate to get out of the city triggered the furious pace of home sales. The switch from rentals to sales moved as quickly as COVID-19’s effect on all of us.
“The rental situation would be the story if there were any rentals, but there are none,” says Katherine Jennings, real estate broker and manager of the Millbrook office of Houlihan Lawrence, a theme echoed by every agent interviewed. Rentals were snapped up within the first weeks of the shutdown. People were signing leases sight unseen, and for a price: the owners were getting more than they were asking, and fast. Some hyper luxury rentals might still be available, if you’re willing to pay north of $40,000 a month for a top-level (as one would expect) estate.
“One client in Chatham got 40 requests in one day,” says Mary Mullane of Mary Mullane Real Estate in Hudson. Pels Matthews of The Matthews Group in Litchfield County says he wrote 55 leases in a two-and-a-half week period.
But with few (or no) rentals available, city-ites’ desperate quest for a rental has turned into the decision to buy, and to make the move permanent. Also, Jennings says, knowing how difficult it can be to find a rental made others more confident in their decision to purchase. Some of the first-time buyers changed plans to buy a condo in the city to buying a house in the country.
The Berkshires
It’s all about family in the Berkshires, according to Mary Jane White, owner of Cohen & White Associates. And families at all stages. The way she describes it conjures images of musical houses, with generations moving in and moving out, according to where family resides.
“If grandparents had a weekend place here, the younger members with kids are moving here,” she says. Parents in the city who have had their college kids sent home realize it’s time to finally get that family compound in the country. At the same time families are moving here to be with their parents and grandparents, some seniors are moving cross country to be with their kids. It’s a fluid situation, but overall there are more people coming to the Berkshires to stay.
The pandemic has made people wonder what they're waiting for. Remote working has freed up many to realize their dream of a country home although, White says, they need high-speed internet, which eliminates some towns in the Berkshires.
There are also investors looking for properties, and a resurgence in land sales, which White says have been sluggish since the last recession. She’s getting phone calls about people wanting to build — positive news for tradespeople and architects in the area.
“The Berkshires may be closed down for a bit on the cultural end, but it’ll be back next year, and everyone knows that,” White says. “The hills are still alive. Culture is the draw for all ages, and all ages want to be together with their families.”
Northwest Connecticut
“It started out as the flight of the 1%, but now we’re seeing — for lack of a better term — the working class New Yorkers,” says Matthews. In Northwest Connecticut, they’re buying homes between $600,000 to $1.5 million. Potential buyers are checking out school systems (word is the Montessori school has already received over 20 new student applications) and planning to stay for at least the first year.
Real estate was deemed as an essential service in Connecticut, so Matthews and his team were able to show houses when necessary. He has about 50 houses under agreement; normally he’d have 12 to 15 at this time of year.
“We’re trying to source inventory as fast we can,” he says.
Columbia and Dutchess Counties
Sales are strong in the Hudson Valley; it is, after all, closer to the city. Hillsdale and areas south of it are the prime territories for commuters. The strongest part of the market is under half a million dollars, says Lisa Bouchard Hoe, vice president and principal broker of The Kinderhook Group, which serves the Hudson Valley as well as the Berkshires. In the past week or so, she says, the over $1 million market has exploded.
All areas in the Hudson Valley are active, Jennings says, but Millbrook, which hadn’t been moving much in past years, is now extremely so. It’s that proximity to the city; some buyers are thinking they will want to commute to the city two to three days a week. Their presence is likely to change the face of Millbrook.
“It’s going to make Millbrook a more stable population,” Jennings says. “We were in the middle of the spring when we had maybe 30% of the houses not occupied. All of sudden, everybody was here, and they brought all their friends. There’ll be less of a shift from season to season.”
Showing houses in New York State was a challenge until yesterday, when real estate offices were allowed to open. Almost all of the houses were shown virtually, Jennings reports, with contracts signed upon contingency. Now, agents can go in with potential buyers if the seller allows it.
Bottom line: Expect to meet new neighbors. And, says Jennings of Houlihan Lawrence, “it’s the best time to be seller in the past 10 years.”
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