MONTICELLO – When it’s time to cut hay, you do so when the sun is bright to get the most and best out of the tall grass. And in real estate, with cycles determined by a bountiful economy or a natural or manmade crisis, you do the same thing.
“We’re very low in inventory. We have a lot of people coming out of the city who want to escape to seclusion,” said Ellie Hyde, broker/owner Century 21 Country Realty. “Right now we are working 12-hour days. Everybody is busy.”
Hyde sells properties in Sullivan County, the heart of a Catskill region that has seen its fortunes roll and tumble through cyclical economies for decades. But the COVID-19 pandemic has created a new land rush here about 90 minutes from the New York City metro area.
“It’s is the busiest market that we’ve had,” said Hyde, of her 16 years in business.
“People have been buying houses sight unseen. Things have been going above asking price.”
When the pandemic locked down our regional economies, Win Morrison fled to Florida in the spring to run his Kingston-based real estate firm from there.
“We had quite a few sales to people who were buying place sight unseen,” said Morrison, echoing Hyde’s experience.
Morrison fielded inquiries from the New Jersey and the New York City and Boston metro areas and has his properties on multiple listing services in the city and Rockland and Westchester counties.
“You put it on the market, and in three days, you have a bidding war on it or a satisfactory offer as long as it’s priced properly without trying to gouge somebody,” said Morrison. “I am thrilled with the business we are doing.”
Morrison sells properties primarily in Ulster, Greene, and Columbia counties, bountiful second-home regions with comfortably spaced zoning in residential and agricultural areas.
This makes it easy to work from home, and Morrison said he has seen a 10 – 25 percent in market appreciation since the pandemic forced many into self-lockdown nearly six months ago.
“It’s the amount of people in New York City that want to get out of the city. It’s kind of a wave coming up through,” he said. “There are properties for sale in the middle of nowhere.”
But safety at home has been driving the real estate boom at the expense of other businesses that rely on social interaction. “Restaurants are for sale, but nobody is buying them because there is no business,” said Morrison. “Residentially, it has been very, very good.”
