Connecticut is proving attractive to people wanting to leave New York City

By Ruth Melville

A recent article in The Hartford Courant reported that since the pandemic started in March, thousands of New Yorkers have moved to Connecticut. Postal Service data from March through June of this year shows that 16,000 New Yorkers switched their addresses to the Nutmeg State.

Although southern Connecticut has seen the largest number of newcomers, the changes in the housing market have been evident in the Northwest Corner as well. In a recent conversation, local real estate agents Betsy and Eliza Little of the Betsy Little Real Estate Agency and Tom McGowan of Elyse Harney Real Estate reported that the emigrants have found their way to Norfolk too, with McGowan estimating that the number of buyers from New York City has doubled this year over last.

Originally, there were fears that the pandemic would dampen the housing market. Although the opposite proved to be true, Covid restrictions have made the process of showing a house much more difficult. As Eliza Little says, “You can’t just have an open house now.” The rules have relaxed a bit recently, but at first only the principal buyers could go in, one at a time, while the agent waited outside.

McGowan remembers that sales started picking up at the end of April and got really strong at the end of June. All the agents agree that buyers are particularly interested in smaller, single-family homes. Less appealing are bigger properties, houses that are overpriced or anything needing a lot of work. Buyers from New York City in particular want move-in condition, McGowan says. He estimates that the number of buyers from New York is double what it normally is.

This increased activity is evident not just in Norfolk. Winsted, Torrington and Canaan have also seen more sales this year. Betsy Little thinks that because Kent and Salisbury are getting filled up, and sellers there are starting to ask the moon, our area is attracting more buyers.

And desirable properties are selling quickly. Betsy Little says she listed a house in Colebrook on a Saturday afternoon, by Sunday she’d scheduled 14 showings and then seven more on Monday. In a few days there were seven offers, most over the offering price. In this particular case, the house had to go back on the market, and this time 49 people signed up within 24 hours to see it. McGowan tells his clients, “If you love it, go for it.”

Land is not selling as well as houses. According to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), there are 13 pieces of property on the market, with one under contract and two having closed in the last 365 days. On the other hand, the rental market exploded in the early spring. Betsy Little says that by now there are basically no rentals left. Although they still gets call, Eliza Little says prospective renters have “kind of missed the boat by now.” In the MLS there is currently only one active yearly furnished rental available.

All the agents are happy, of course, to have a strong market, which had been soft since the 2008 recession. And they agree that despite buyers sometimes offering more than the asking price, so far at least prices haven’t risen particularly high, nor have there been a lot of bidding wars. But Betsy Little feels this is a transitional moment, and worries that tensions might rise if the market becomes too aggressive. She says the market has “gotten a little crazy, it makes me a little nervous.” McGowan is more sanguine. He finds many of his clients to be easier to work with, since they are so motivated to find a house quickly.

Norfolk has been hoping to encourage more families with young children to move to town—it is one of the reasons for the push for fiber-optic broadband—and it will be interesting to see whether the current real estate upswing will result in increased enrollment figures at Botelle School. Preliminary signs are good, though, since Botelle’s enrollment this fall is up xx students.