A house in Cornwall goes on the market and has eight buyers check it out in one day. Two promptly offer the full price of $305,000, which the winning bidder later upped to $340,000.
An Orange County house is put up for rent and its agent gets 30 phone calls asking about it, about 25 or so from New York City.
Four people make offers in one weekend to buy a $550,000 house in the Ulster County hamlet of Kerhonkson. The buyer winds up paying more than the list price and doing so entirely in cash, without setting foot inside.
Real estate professionals offered those examples and similar accounts of surging demand for homes in the Hudson Valley and Catskills in recent weeks. Though it may be too soon to confirm the upstate rush predicted to come from the coronavirus trauma, the unmistakable signs are that homes — already in short supply before the pandemic hit — are selling quickly and that many of those seeking them are from the city that just bore the brunt of the pandemic.
"There's definitely an influx from the New York City metro area who are looking for homes up here," said Ron Garafalo, office manager of John J. Lease Realtors in Middletown.
The spike comes after real state activity stopped entirely in March when the pandemic took hold and businesses shut. Agents have since returned to work with certain restrictions, such as being forbidden to accompany buyers into homes, and can resume their full activities with new virus precautions when the Hudson Valley enters its second reopening phase, expected on Tuesday.
Theresa Budich, a broker for Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, described the market as "incredibly busy" and said she has never seen it change so quickly in 26 years of selling homes. Having to wear masks and gloves when visiting homes or settle for virtual showings hasn't deterred the buyers, many of whom are from New York City, she said.
"We have certain rules we are required to follow, and buyers are more than willing to follow them," said Budich, who recently had a client offer $26,000 more than asking price for a house.
There also are signs the pandemic has encouraged more New York City dwellers to buy second homes upstate or settle into weekend retreats they already owned for longer spells. Working remotely for the last couple months — and the likelihood it will continue — has given them the freedom to do so.
Hemant Anant Jain, an advertising copywriter and artist from Manhattan, bought a newly built home with just 815 square feet and two bedrooms in Sullivan County in August, a country getaway where he and his wife never expected to live full time.
That changed after being cooped up in their Chelsea apartment for weeks, with constant disinfecting and anxiety about touching doorknobs and surfaces during the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak.
"It got bizzare to an extreme level," Jain recalled.
The couple has since decamped to their little Narrowsburg home and enrolled their 4-year-old son in The Homestead School, a 200-student Montessori school on 85 acres in Glen Spey. They plan to stay at least through the end of the school year, and give up their apartment in the city.
Jain said it made no sense for him stay in the city for his job, since his advertising agency can function almost entirely with its staff scattered and is unlikely to reopen its office until January.
Chuck Petersheim, the builder who sold Jain his home, has long catered to the New York City market, and says describing the current demand as "very robust" is an understatement. One small measure: visitor traffic on the website for his business, Catskill Farms, jumped from about five per week to 30.
Petersheim, who also runs a real estate business, said he had sold seven homes in the last seven weeks and had four more under contract. He believes the pandemic has caused people to reevaluate their living environment and encouraged people who had been saving to buy a place in the city to spend that money upstate instead.
"People are starting to think about, what does life look like now?" Petersheim said.
Dan Clarino, owner of the Remax Benchmark Realty Group office in New Windsor, says the market is so brisk and inventory so low that some sellers are getting multiple offers within a day of listing their house. Buyers need to be ready with pre-qualification for a mortgage to be able to compete, he said.
Clarino has been in business for more than 40 years and recalls the upstate migration after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. He expects the pandemic could have a broader impact, given that it was spread throughout the city, although it may take a few months to measure that effect after home sales being negotiated today culminate in closings.
But the initial trend is apparent: "It's definitely had an impact on people from the city moving up to this area," Clarino said.
