October 19th, 2021
There has been a housing crisis in the Hudson Valley region for decades. During the housing boom before the Great Recession, the real estate market was thriving with prices at historic highs. The housing bubble burst and prices dramatically declined, banks tightened lending rules and underwriting became very strict, and the market was extremely unstable. Mortgage rates remained higher than during the housing boom and median home prices continued to decline.
Starting in 2013/2014, housing prices were somewhat stable and began to rise steadily in many of the region’s counties, while mortgage interest rates declined as the housing market staged a comeback.
The Median Sales Price was up in every county by 2019. Overall, there was an approximate increase of about 20% in the Median Sales Price, with the exception of Westchester County, which increased only 10% from 2013 to 2019.
During the Pandemic in 2020, every county in the Hudson Valley showed incredible increases in the Median Sales Price. Every county was up nearly 10% or more compared to 2019, with the exception of Putnam County showing only a 5.7% increase. The most notable gains were in the more rural counties of Sullivan (+36.8%), Columbia (+25.7%), and Greene (+23.1%). These increases were, in part, a result of a demographic shift away from the dense urban core of New York City, which was greatly influenced by the ability to work remotely coupled with historically low interest rates.
