There was a great article in the December 14, 2018, Real Estate section of The New York Times, titled Forget the Suburbs, It’s Country or Bust by Brooke Lea Foster. The article takes a look at people who have left the city, and in many cases Brooklyn, behind and moved north.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the article:

Forget the Suburbs, It’s Country or Bust

For some New Yorkers, being priced out of the city means it’s time to move to the woods.

Former Park Slope residents Steven Weinberg and Casey Scieszka bought and renovated an aging motel and farmhouse in the Catskills, where they now live with baby Amina. In the kitchen, they repurposed an antique barn door as an island countertop. CreditCreditTony Cenicola/The New York Times

By Brooke Lea Foster

When Casey Scieszka, a freelance writer, and her husband, Steven Weinberg, a children’s book writer and illustrator, decided to leave Park Slope, Brooklyn, they didn’t consider the New York suburbs, where the yards were too small and the property too pricey. Instead, they moved to a house five miles down a dirt road — in the Catskills.

If you’re surprised to hear that two city-based creatives gave up their urban roots for life in the country, so were their families. Perhaps no one was more shocked than Mr. Weinberg’s grandmother and a friend of hers who once vacationed near the young couple’s new home in West Kill, N.Y. “The Catskills are over,” the friend said with concern.

Mr. Weinberg, 34, politely responded: “But you haven’t been there in 40 years. It’s different now.”

One could say the same for many of the rural hamlets, lush valleys and charming Main Streets of upstate New York: They’re changing, thanks to a wave of city folks moving in. Sure, the hemlock trees are still towering, the mountain ranges still majestic and the streams still rushing, but telecommuting has inspired a new crop of people to move to these sometimes wild, sometimes walkable and sometimes wide-open spaces. Priced out of the city, but armed with the possibility of working at home, some New Yorkers are willing to trade their walk to work for a walk in the woods.

“If you want to live on five acres, that’s never going to happen in the suburbs, so some people are looking farther,” said Jessica Fields, a real estate agent for Compass in Park Slope. In 2014, she founded Beyond Brooklyn, which helps people who want to leave the city figure out where to go.

She and her husband considered moving their family to Ulster County seven years ago — and while that is not entirely off the table, they are staying in Brooklyn for now. “We know so many people who have moved upstate or are curious about moving there. It attracts the people that want to be outside and make their own kombucha, but still want to stay connected to arts and culture.”

A 2018 StreetEasy report showed that when New Yorkers move within the tristate area, 6 percent go to Westchester and Rockland counties, while 12 percent wind up in New York counties north of there. (For comparison’s sake, 9 percent move to Long Island and 13 percent to New Jersey, whether to urban Hudson County or beyond.) Residents of the Bronx and Staten Island are most likely to move upstate (17 percent), followed by Brooklynites (12 percent).

Visit the New York Times here, to continue reading.

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Jeff McKinney is a Realtor in Columbia County, NY. Connect with him on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Pinterest.

There was a very interesting article in the April 13, 2018, issue of The New York Times. The article, titled “Betting on the Berkshires” by Tim McKeough, takes a look at the Real Estate happenings, economic developments, and potential of Berkshire County. The article gives us a great overview of ongoing activity taking place in the northern Berkshire towns like North Adams.

Here are the first few paragraphs of McKeough’s article:

When the partners behind Tourists, a boutique hotel under construction in North Adams, Mass., invited the celebrated San Francisco-based chef Cortney Burns to open a restaurant at their establishment, her first impulse was to say no.

“I had no reason to go to the East Coast. I had one restaurant I was closing, one I had just opened and another I was just about to sign the lease on,” said Ms. Burns, 38, a James Beard Foundation Award winner who was co-chef at Bar Tartine in San Francisco before opening Duna, both with Nicolaus Balla. “So by no means did I find myself free.”

However, after agreeing to visit North Adams, a former manufacturing town of brick industrial buildings ringed by rolling green hills in Berkshire County, to discuss a possible consulting role, she found it impossible to leave.

“What I saw here was this beautiful confluence of nature, culture, solitude and such a deep historical story,” Ms. Burns said. “It was one of those open doors that I felt like I would be a fool to not walk through.”

The article also discusses some recent real estate transactions, new development projects in Great Barrington, and new restaurants in the region. If you haven’t read the full article yet, click here, and check it out. Its a great read.

For more local happenings, news, and events, follow ColumbiaCountyCurrent.com on twitter @CoCoCurrent.

Jeff McKinney is a Realtor in Columbia County, NY. Connect with him on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Pinterest.