Page 24 - Westchester Relocation Guide 2021

WESTCHESTER: BEST PLACES TO LIVE
With a riverfront location and a diverse housing stock, Ossining has become a popular area for city transplants.
of its close proximity to the city. But the activity has been far reaching, across all areas. And every price point, except for $5 million-plus, has experienced high, high demand.”
As a result, inventory has been hard to come by. “That’s the biggest struggle: Pending deals and demand are way up, but we haven’t had enough inventory to meet the need,” Doern explains.
Adding to the limited inventory is the fact that due to the pandemic, homeowners who may have planned to sell in order to downsize changed their minds when they realized they would be in lockdown mode. “When the virus hit, many grown children moved back into the homes of their parents who had been thinking of selling their homes to scale down. During the lockdown, families might have had four or five adults all working from home, so they needed that big house and decided to stay put,” explains Doern.
The harsh reality of everyday life during the COVID-19 pandemic clearly fueled the decision to pull the trigger on a move to the suburbs for many families. Spending months cooped up inside apartments with no outdoor spaces and trying to live, work, and play under one tiny roof — or, alternatively, packing up the family and bouncing around in suburban rentals in an attempt to ride out the pandemic in safer, more suitable surroundings — chipped away at the glamour and prestige of New York City for many families. With its abundance of large homes, lush outdoor spaces,
easy access to safe nature activities, and the usual draws of commuting ease, competitive schools, and charming Main Streets, the lure of Westchester has remained incredibly strong.
In particular, affordable Rivertowns, like Ossining, Cortlandt, and Peekskill, are appealing to a lot of families these days, notes Suzanne Welch, associate broker at Coldwell Banker Realty’s Lower Hudson
Valley Regional Office in Yorktown Heights, with the Home on the Hudson Team. “You can get a lot of bang for your buck in these areas. There are many buyers who want out of apartments and condos, so properties listed in Croton or Ossining for less than $700,000 fly off the market.”
Northern Westchester is also increasingly popular with buyers, as
“People are looking for spaces where everyone can congregate, like a media room to watch movies or a big kitchen where you can cook for the whole family.” —Myrna Anover, REMAX Prime Properties
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