The Glens Falls-Lake George area is enjoying a quiet boom in residential real estate sales, say local real estate agents.
Contributors include first-time home buyers attracted to moderate prices and low interest rates, empty nesters approaching retirement and trying to recapture memories of past North Country vacations, and buyers with growing confidence in their financial future.
Area real estate agents report a busy year, in some cases, their busiest since before the 2008 recession. They see years of pent-up demand finally coming loose and a market stabilizing as the last of the foreclosure trauma works its way through the market.
They also benefit from the increasingly expensive Saratoga County market.
“My business doubled this year. Things were really crazy last winter, spring, and summer,” said Patti Grey Whann of Glens Falls Area Realty, who has been in the business for 13 years.
“Last year was beginning to look a little bit like the boom time, around 2004,” she said, “It felt good.”
She said her typical buyer was a first-time home buyer, often a young family. She specialized in “beautiful, wonderful older homes.” Typically, many of her buyers wanted space for a dog.
“I love first-time home buyers,” she said, “They are so excited.”
Thomas VanAernem also sees a lot of first-time home buyers, drawn by low interest rates and growing consumer confidence.
“They are very educated by the time they get to us,” he said, and often know the house they want to look at and its price range and are frequently already pre-qualified for a loan. “They are a little more aggressive,” he noted.
Susan Balfour of Balfour Realty in Glens Falls, said people looking for a good investment.
“Real estate is a good investment. It’s tangible and there are not a lot of other places to put your money,” she said.
She has been selling property like six-unit apartment houses, hotels, and smaller multi-family homes. As an example, she pointed out that someone can buy a multi-family house for $150,000 and rent the units for $2,000 or more a month.
Balfour reported a “real onslaught” of buyers looking for homes in the $200,000 range. That price can be a re-sale with three bedrooms, two or two-and-a-half baths, totalling 14,000 to 15,000 square feet of living space. She is also selling new town homes or ranch houses in the $250-$300,000 range to baby boomers looking to downsize.
On the whole, she said, “I haven’t had a bad year, but not the best year.” She said there is a good selection available on the market and a “good mix” of people moving into the area.
Dan Davies of Davis-Davies & Associates Realty in Lake George said the resort market is very strong, even better than the residential market. He estimated that it is up more than 50 percent this year, “a huge jump.”
Davies sells second homes, hotels, and luxury homes, including 14 homes in southern Lake George priced at over $2 million each. He said that the market for new construction in Queensbury, Glens Falls and South Glens Falls is also “red hot.”
“Pent up demand” is finally opening up, he said. “It’s less of a buyers’ market but not yet a sellers’ market.”
Davies, who has been in business since the late 1970s, sees the market stabilizing now that a glut of foreclosure sales has worked its way through the system. He expects prices to increase slowly in the near future, for new residential property, resales, and commercial real estate, especially for high-end new construction.
Other agents also foresee a stable market, with slowly increasing prices in the near future and they expect mortgage interest rates to stay in the 3.1 to 3.3 percent range.
“Nobody moves interest rates in an election year,” Whann said.