The Daily Catch

Fewer Homes, Lower Prices: What’s Going on with Rhinebeck’s Real Estate Market?



This two-bedroom, one-bath home at 303 Sepasco Lake Road in Rhinebeck is listed for sale at $369,000 (photo from GreatHudsonValleyHomes.com).

New homes in Rhinebeck are increasingly hard to come by even as the sales prices for houses have dropped over the past year, a new report shows. 

“The market is still very aggressive; there is a lot of demand, but the problem is there is almost no inventory,” Doreen De Carolis, an agent at Upstate Down, a new real estate agency in Rhinebeck, told The Daily Catch.

The number of new homes listed for sale in Rhinebeck plummeted 43 percent over the past year, from 30 homes on the market last winter to just 17 listed last quarter, according to a newly released report from Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty (read here). Homes also sold more quickly this winter than they did last year.

But there is one piece of good news for prospective home buyers.

The median house sales price for a single-family home in the Town of Rhinebeck dropped 19 percent, from $690,000 last year to $560,000 in the first quarter of this year, January through March, the report shows.

Local experts say this could be because Rhinebeck’s housing market is rebalancing after home sale prices peaked during the pandemic, which brought a new wave of homebuyers to the Mid-Hudson Valley. 

“Rhinebeck has really tested the market,” said De Carolis. “What we are seeing could be a sort of course correction, where prices come down slightly after being very inflated during the pandemic.” 

The price dip could also be the result of more modest homes being sold in the winter quarter as opposed to the same period last year. The median list price for a single-family home this past quarter was $580,000, a 26 percent decrease from $785,000 last winter, the report shows. Over the past year, the price sellers are seeking has closely mirrored the price for which homes are ultimately sold. 

Lower sales prices for single-family homes belie soaring demand, as bidding wars over new houses rage on. Prospective buyers continue to find themselves making multiple offers on the same home in an effort to out-compete each other. De Carolis said she has advised clients determined to buy a new home to be prepared to make an offer on a property immediately following a house showing.

The housing crunch in Rhinebeck is also playing out in nearby Red Hook and Milan (read our coverage here). And local rentals are even harder to find than homes for sale. This year, the inventory of vacant apartments in Red Hook and Rhinebeck hit historic lows, prompting a Daily Catch report on the challenges young people face when searching for affordable local housing (read our coverage). 

The issue of affordable housing has been raised by both Red Hook and Rhinebeck officials. In June, Rhinebeck’s Town Planning Board and workforce housing committee are set to review a proposal to build 80 units of workforce housing near the Wells Manor senior citizen housing complex and Route 308. 

De Carolis noted that Rhinebeck has long been a “mecca” for second homeowners and that demand for homes there has always been high.

“Rhinebeck is a special place, people always want to move there,” concurred Maarty Reilingh, an associate broker at Coldwell Banker-Village Green Realty.

Between its vibrant village center, access to New York City from the Amtrak Rhinecliff train station, and highly regarded public schools, De Carolis said, “Rhinebeck has so much going for it.” 

 

One response to “Fewer Homes, Lower Prices: What’s Going on with Rhinebeck’s Real Estate Market?”

  1. Keith Greeney says:

    Rhinebecck and Red Hook use to be special places to live. Not so much anymore.

Leave a Reply