It happens every Memorial Day, and this year will be no exception. Some of the people driving up from the New York City metropolitan area during the long weekend won’t want to go back.
It’s not just the fear of Thruway traffic that motivates them. They’ve undergone a life-changing experience. There’s no going back. They’ve been catching themselves fantasizing about a better life: perhaps a cabin in the woods, a small-town pied-à-terre close to the Trailways bus stop, or a suburban split-level that reminds them of where they might have grown up.
Perhaps they plan to come upstate on weekends more often. Maybe one of a couple will commute to the city once a week while the other builds an upstate nest. Or maybe they’ll make an abrupt decision right then and there to give up Gotham cold turkey.
Some of these seekers will end up buying real estate on quick impulse. Others plan a methodical search and wonder whether they shouldn’t check out the Hamptons again, too. Still others will look, look and look but never buy.
“When I got up into the country, I responded so totally,” one of these disrupted souls told The New York Times, journalistic repository for the transcendent experiences of the urban middle classes. “It was like a yearning had been fulfilled that I didn’t even know was there.”
A new generation has been added to the mix in recent years: the moneyed millennials. Let it not be said that the local real-estate professionals, who sell the positive experience of living in a paradise with low relatively housing prices, discourage these eager newcomers. Why should they?
“They’re the nicest group of people,” said Candida Ellis, managing partner at Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty (CBVGR). “They have more money at their age. They saw the crash of 2009, and they understand real estate. There are still low interest rates, and they’re in a good mood. They’re the friendliest people, in touch with their feelings. They realize the best time [to buy] is now.”
Pamela Jean Orr, who sells real estate out of a Keller Williams franchise in Margaretville, agrees. “The people we are selling to now are experiential,” she said. “You have to sell them the experience.” Her average customer is 35 years old, she says. In her Delaware County experience, the average broker is 65.
These young buyers realize that the Internet revolution has made long-distance communication dramatically faster, easier and cheaper, diminishing the importance of geographic proximity in social interactions. They can now have the best of both worlds, they think, enjoying downstate incomes in an upstate environment.
For all but the newcomers with the highest incomes, however, distance is not dead. Early research indicates that electronic communications are most pronounced in regard to local social ties. Perhaps counter-intuitively, digital technology has increased and not decreased the importance of geographic proximity.
Living upstate while working downstate is not easy. Does the non-monetary compensation tip the scales?
According to the 2012 federal Economic Census, about 4000 people in the five mid-Hudson counties of Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange and Ulster were engaged in the business of real estate, rentals and leasing. That total number hasn’t changed much since then.
Perhaps a quarter of those were employed in rental and leasing services, and others were in property management, appraising and office work, let’s estimate that there are 2500 real-estate agents actively serving a population of perhaps 1.1 million, or one agent per more then 500 persons.
Two weeks ago, Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty held a soft opening at its new office in Montgomery Row (6423 Montgomery Street, Suite 17A) in Rhinebeck. The firm’s agents have already created a market at their new turf. According to marketing director Amy Wallace, seven agents work out of the new location.
This is CBVGR’s first foray on the east bank of the Hudson River. ”We have crossed the great divide,” pronounced managing partner Ellis, feigning drama.
Started by Ellis’ active business partner, Joan Lonergan of Woodstock, CBVGR now has as well as its Rhinebeck location three offices in Ulster County (Woodstock, Kingston and New Paltz), one in Orange County (Goshen) and one in Greene County (Windham). As of two weeks ago, it boasted 105 agents (its office managers are agents, too) plus five staff people.
CBVGR prides itself on its supportive culture. “We’re all moving in the same direction,” says Ellis. “You have to play as a team.”
Though Ellis thinks that the character of the business of real estate hasn’t changed fundamentally, she acknowledges that digital technology has had great impact. Sites like Zillow, Trivia and Realtor.com have created more knowledgeable consumers expecting more services.
According to Zillow, the median home value in Ulster County is $192,900. Realtor.com puts the median closing price at $174,000. The NYS Association of Realtors put the median selling price in March 2017 at $188,500. According to both Zillow and Realtor.com, the median listing price was now $215,000. The inventory of houses for sale was rapidly declining, however, usually an indicator of higher prices to come.
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