Upstate Market Snapshot: Ulster County real estate is en fuego
While Sullivan County home sales sales are down 25% for the first two months of 2024, properties that “tick the boxes” are still trading swiftly, as was the case with this new build in Livingston Manor.
BY JENNIFER GRIMES
If you’re planning on selling your turnkey, stylish home, you’ll be delighted to hear there is a surplus of eager and active buyers out there and the gloves are off to snap up the most desirable properties. The perennial challenge at this time of year is lack of inventory. So if you were excited to snap up bargains on the most Instagrammable properties this coming season, don’t bet on it. And yet if you are willing to break from the pack, there ARE opportunities out there.
Ulster Co. home sales up, Sullivan sluggish
Across the board, sellers simply prefer to list after the monochromatic winter gives way to technicolor green grass and leaves on the trees. This year the amount of quality housing stock is woefully low everywhere, but particularly in Sullivan County. In the first two months of the year sales are down 25% from the same period last year, while in Ulster, which is en fuego, is up 17%. Ulster County is more densely populated and simply has significantly more housing stock. Sullivan is seeing activity levels vary strongly by price range: Prices up to around mid-$600ks for quality properties are still moving fairly swiftly, but above that is very sluggish. Case in point, for new listings posted in 2024, the highest sale or pending property (of those new listings) in Sullivan Co. MLS is $629,000.
Yet the Sullivan properties that tick the proverbial boxes, few though they might be at the moment, are still flying off the shelf. Take our new construction listing (that $629k accepted offer) for Manor Modern in Livingston Manor, which had a full price accepted offer the first weekend leaving several disappointed buyers in its wake.
Ulster, on the other hand, has 43% of its new year listings pending or sold, versus 18% for Sullivan. And Ulster’s prices for these snapped-up homes run the full range, up into the very high end. It’s the aggressiveness of the bids on popular houses in Ulster that’s still raising eyebrows, just when we thought that might have topped out.
Here’s the inside scoop
Statewide real estate stats are pretty useless since our market is so dependent on Metro New York as a driving force, so here I’d like to share a quick rundown of the Country House Team’s experience out in the field over the last couple of weeks. This color will help inform your expectations and in some cases, prepare you for battle.
Harry McNamara
A couple of weeks ago I submitted offers for 3 clients in one weekend. One in Greene County at $1.3m asking price, conventional financing. They lost out to an offer that went over ask. Second at $700k in Delaware County, with an offer close to 10% over ask, non-contingent. Was beat out by another offer. Third was a land listing in Ulster County. Multiple offers, and it went over ask. My take away? At all price points, listings of quality are flying. Death by low inventory.
On the other hand, on a lesser quality listing there's often room to haggle. I negotiated $150,000 off of an asking price for a buyer client whose sale closed last week.
Country House hosted two Open Houses this weekend (Ulster and Delaware Counties), and the Team attended a number of others with their clients. Both of ours resulted in offers, in one case in multiple offers, and the color from the other OHs seems to indicate a robust if not frenzied level of buyer activity. We’re hearing about dozens of showings on the most desirable listings in the first few days, and several offers the first weekend. It should be noted that the competitive bidding is largely on the most popular properties, as the market seems to overwhelmingly want the same features: turnkey, great design, proximity to towns with lifestyle amenities, etc. One of our agents noted that her clients seem to be planning on spending more than just weekends Upstate, so the desire to be near great markets, restaurants, etc. that are open more than they’re closed, makes a number of towns in Ulster a top choice versus some sleepier areas.
I attended three different open houses, two of which have called for best and final bids by Tuesday. On one my client bid $1,060,000 and waived all contingencies on a property listing for $849k and lost. I asked the listing agent if we were in the top 3 or 5 offers, and they disclosed we were in the top 5. So there were 3-4 offers better than THAT.
And I showed three different groups 2-3 properties each in Ulster County, and all 3 are submitting offers in best and final situations at price points in the $500ks and $800ks. On the other OH, there were 4 offers and my $25k above asking cash offer no inspection also lost.
Two different clients came out of the woodwork this weekend with significantly improved budget parameters [stimulated by some exciting new listings in Delaware and Ulster Counties]. Hoping that's a sign of people feeling reinvigorated about the market!
Expect property listings to ramp up
Nothing prescient here: Every spring the number of listings coming to market in the Catskills and Hudson Valley starts to meaningfully increase in April. The unseasonably warm weather, you can expect some sellers to jump the gun and go live in March. Keep in mind the huge swing in the pace of seasonal change: There can be a nearly three week differential between when daffodils and forsythia bloom in the more temperate low-lying valley towns, like Kingston and Rhinebeck, and high-elevation areas in Margaretville, Windham and parts of Livingston Manor. So you may see a commensurate difference in when that spike begins, as the sellers who want leafy photos hold out for Mother Nature to do her thing.
Home buyers do not fear
If you’re a buyer in The Catskills or Hudson Valley and this post has you despondent about your prospects, it’s really important that you have an agent with a robust toolbox of strategies for getting the keys to your Upstate house. The Country House Team has been leading the way in creative negotiation, and it’s why we are so successful in getting clients into their house of choice, so contact us today and we’ll pair you up with the agent best-suited to your needs.
Jennifer Grimes is the Broker / Founder of Country House Realty.