Upstate NY Market

www.columbianortherndutchessmls.com

If you're willing to go a bit further, there are capital region listings as well.

There was an extensive thread on upstate properties a couple of months ago.

propertyshark also has some data for dutchess and columbia counties

Maybe the poster columbiacounty will stop by... he/she seems to know the area well.

Meanwhile, another site to try is Westwood Metes and Bounds (for Ulster County primarily).

How about lower westchester? anyone have fave blogs?

also mydreamhouse.com. its the link for the mid-hudson mls

upstate is pretty broad...what areas are you interested in?

Columbia - No further than 2hrs. Ulster, Sullivan, Dutchess. I have no feel for the market up there but find many of the listings online show trees in full summer foliage. I would prefer something less empirical than stale listings upon which to base my market opinion. For instance, I would love a source to find/search price reductions a la SE. Is the market in free fall or has it already gone through a deep decline and leveling off? Are there such a thing as county RE board market reports -or anything independent?

spinnaker1, try David Knudsen's site:

http://catskill4sale.com/

He blogs about the Sullivan County market and does monthly sales reports, etc. It's a great resource.

other than the mls boards listed above, there is nothing that I am aware of. there is a buyers broker blog that i have enjoyed reading over the years although i have no idea of how accurate he is because he is on the other side of the river...http://www.catskill4sale.com/

in my neck of the woods, market is somewhat similar to manhattan in that there is a lot of "I don't need to sell" going on. prices have dropped but are still 30% over where they were in 2002-2003 as things started to run up astronomically.

in general, i think you will find much greater value (house size, acreage) in ulster, sullivan & greene counties (i.e. west of river) than in columbia and dutchess but the commute can be much tougher because of the need to cross the river.

catskill4sale is just what I'm looking for. Thanks!

In addition to the above, you can always use realtor.com. Best bet is searching by zip code, but you can do more general searches as well. When you find a listing you're interested in, go to the listing agent's site to get more info. Then back to Realtor.com for comparables. Most, but not all listings will be on Realtor.com, and you'll get a great sense of what's out there. Caveat emptor - it is run by the NAR, so don't expect any market info.

Once you've narrowed it down, then you can use trulia and zillow to do valuations or to get a better (more objective) sense of market trends in the area. But don't trust any website to get it right. Eventually you're going to have to get in the car and see stuff for reals.

Tina
(Brooklyn broker)

If you find a good broker to work with, he/she should have good knowledge of the sales trends of the specific market you are interested in. in addition they will be able to pull specific data off the mls/board of realtors to which they belong. As far as northern dutchess and columbia go, well priced homes (weekend/second home market) are just beginning to sell again at a decent pace.

hudsonvalley.craigslist.org also has a lot of fsbo listings

http://casacara.wordpress.com/category/hudson-valley/

blogs about the Hudson Valley area (as well as LI)

http://www.the12534.com/

has a list of Columbia County brokers/links on its sidebar

Here is a better link to the list of Columbia County realtors:

http://www.the12534.com/search/label/Realtors