Houses in Pittsfield as seen from a drone in 2023. Rents in Western Massachusetts jumped by more than a third from 2021 to 2023, according to a new report. iStock photo
A steady stream of remote workers, mostly professionals of one sort or another, fled Boston and other big cities for rural New England during the pandemic.
The newcomers bid up home prices and rents in popular destinations like Western Massachusetts and Vermont in a bid to escape relatively cramped city living for more spacious homes in the country.
The life-and-death COVID crisis and the ultra-low mortgage rates that let some chase their rural idyll are long gone now. So, too, are some of those transplants, called back to the office or maybe just disenchanted with life beyond the big city.
But others have remained and put down roots, with the newcomers, along with fueling demand for restaurants and other amenities in places like St. Johnsbury, the capital, such as it is, of Vermont’s traditionally poverty-stricken Northeast Kingdom.
And you know what has also not gone away? The high prices and rents, which show no signs of returning to their pre-pandemic levels in either Western Massachusetts or Vermont.
23K New Homes Needed
Rents in Western Massachusetts jumped by more than a third from 2021 to 2023, according to a new report by the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute and the nonprofit Wayfinders.
More than 23,000 new single-family houses, apartments and condominiums will be needed over the next decade to stabilize the market and close the growing gap between supply and demand, the report finds.
Single-family and condo prices in Hampshire County, home to upscale communities like Amherst and Northampton, hit $400,000 in 2024, up from roughly $350,000 before the pandemic, the report found.
The Amherst/Northampton market was listed as the sixth-hottest in the country back in June by Realtor.com based on price growth, limited inventory and days on market.
Typical listing prices for the two college towns and their environs were in the mid-$500,000s.
However, Springfield took top honors, named the country’s hottest market in in the same analysis.
For a city that has been one of the poorest in the state and has had its share struggles, that’s quite a remarkable turnaround.
The Impact in One Town
Meanwhile, another seemingly unlikely real estate hot spot has emerged in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, home to Caledonia, Essex and Orleans counties in the state’s northeast tier.
The region over the years has earned a reputation both for its pastoral beauty and for a poverty rate, that at 12 to 13 percent, or roughly the rate of Greater Boston.
But the pandemic brought buyers looking for deals to the region, with home prices in Caledonia County, home to St. Johnsbury, have skyrocketed from just under $200,000 in 2020 to double that today, according to Redfin.
At my recent family reunion in the little town of Glover, about 30 miles to the north of St. Johnsbury, the consensus was that many of the city-slickers who flocked to the region amid the pandemic had since left, which, given the long and brutal winters, maybe isn’t all the surprising.
But some clearly stayed. St. Johnsbury’s long-depressed downtown now boasts a bevy of trendy restaurants and a hip bakery/coffee shop.
Scott Van Voorhis
From Ex-McDonalds to Trendy Restaurants
This was a city, mind you, that couldn’t even support a McDonald’s, with the franchise owner shutting the doors in 2018.
I mean, when does the only McDonald’s in a city close?
It probably didn’t help that a McDonald’s worker had been busted a few years before selling cocaine out of the fast-food joint, located just off the main drag in the city’s downtown.
“I think a lot of people have grown up with the McDonald’s there, a lot of the seniors depend on it, it’s really a tough blow to see this one go,” said Darcie McCann of the Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce, told a local radio station at the time.
That was then and this is now. When I stopped for coffee and lunch the other weekend, vacant storefronts were few and far between and a building that had been a prominent eyesore now has apartments with a bustling bakery on the ground floor.
Overall, St. Johnsbury added 34 businesses between 2020 and 2024, according to VermontBiz.
Compared to the rest of Caledonia County, St. Johnsbury also remains a relatively affordable community to buy a home in, with a median sale price of $260,000, per brokerage Redfin.
However, given the way things are going, that pocket of affordability is not likely to last, either.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist and publisher of the Contrarian Boston newsletter; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
