Inside the Freak-out Housing Market of Upstate New York
In the past year, the real-estate market has — well, gone berserk. Houses are going for millions over asking in Boise and Albuquerque. Buyers are offering to name their firstborn baby after sellers. In this new series, Realtor Diaries, we talk to the people at the center of it all — about the 2 a.m. emails from clients, the 16-hour, six-day-a-week workdays, and the all-cash offers coming in from people who’ve never once seen the property they’re buying.
This past year, in upstate New York, city dwellers swarmed small towns and villages, turning what had, even before the pandemic, been a very competitive housing market into pandemonium: real-estate lust spiked by panic. When it came to the most in-demand properties — tastefully furnished farmhouses with wide-plank floorboards, Scandinavian-inspired cabins, anything with a pool or priced under $500,000 — it wasn’t uncommon for brokers to field 15 or 20 offers. We talked to brokers in three of the wildest upstate markets: the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, and Kingston.
During the first half of 2020, some $348 million in real-estate deals happened in Dutchess County, a popular part of the Hudson Valley. In the first half of 2021, that number was $709 million.
