“Things have started to percolate,” said Harris Safier of Westwood, Metes & Bounds. “People start looking online and they seem to be noticing that the inventory’s started going down. The national media’s started saying we reached the bottom and it’s as if buyers are realizing that now’s the time to get in here before the competition gets tougher.”
Adding to the current climate is the fact that interest rates have remained low — which several folks we spoke with felt wasn’t going to last out the month — and the recent weather catastrophes to our south, including Hurricane Sandy and a series of winter storm surges, have soured many on owning beach homes, or living in low-lying areas in New Jersey or on Long Island.
“It’s kind of an unspoken thing,” Safier added. “There’s also the fact that with changing work habits, more people can envision living up here now. We’ve got better houses coming on the market. And those interest rates, even if they rise a percentage point, are still nothing like the 15 and 18 percent figures I remember from when I was starting out in this business 35 years ago.”
6 a.m. to midnight
Win Morrison, who specializes in commercial real estate as well as home sales, went one step farther in terms of his thoughts regarding the effects of Sandy and similar weather events on the real estate market.
“Just as 9/11 tuned a negative into a positive up here, I think we’re going to see an even bigger surge once the insurance companies and FEMA start to pay out. And I think it’s going to affect all elements of the market, including restaurants and lodging, businesses and homes. I think we’re in a situation that’s going to be very, very good.”
Morrison added that those in his business who still complain about down markets simply aren’t working hard enough. He gets up at six each morning, he proudly notes, and works to midnight. Similarly, what’s happening out there stays a buyers’ market…for anyone with the good credit to get themselves a mortgage, as well as for high end purchasers looking for second homes or fun investments.
Finally, Ulster County Board of Realtors President Laurel Sweeney, of Prudential Nutshell Realty, reeled off figures that backed up everyone’s on-the-street findings. She demonstrated how state-wide trends show that the median sales price in January 2013 over 2012 was up 5.0 percent to $220,000, with the number of sales up 9.5 percent. On a local level, the number of closed sales in Ulster County January 2013 over 2012 was essentially unchanged, but the median sales price was significantly up above the state average. And that’s after 2012 saw closed sales up 16.2% over 2011.
“It’s important to watch the economy since job growth directly fuels home purchases and housing generates jobs,” she said. “Generally speaking, we are seeing trends and activity that speak to a slowly recovering market. Throughout Ulster County, inventory is reduced, pricing is competitive and interest rates are seeing very slight increases.”
Town versus town
How are different places in the area doing, lined up against each other?
Safier, who is the president elect at the Ulster County Board of Realtors, said Stone Ridge was way up and Woodstock is like a market all its own. Also rising, now, were Saugerties and High Falls. Moreover, the market average, at least in interest, has gone up from the $200,000 to $300,000 range to $400,000 and up.
Morrison also noted Woodstock as its own market, along with buzz in Catskill and the Phoenicia area. Kingston, he said, only suffered when it succumbed to peer pressure, meaning its own hubris or media.
“People used to talk a lot about downsizing. They were looking for smaller homes,” Lonergan said. “You don’t hear that anymore. It’s really about trust in the economy again; it’s about trust that things are going to get better. It’s about confidence.”
“Everyone who comes to us wants to be here, in Phoenicia,” Peavy added. “But then they compromise.”
He paused looking out his window as sunlight broke through cloud cover and the dripping of melted snow resounded up and down Main Street.
“I just need to find younger sales people now,” he noted. “I want people who can talk to 30 year old buyers.”
[…] Less so, but we hear from our sources that demand is definitely on the rise. Which has led the Woodstock Times to report that brokers are “smiling optimistically.” Most of this optimism comes from the interest […]