What’s the most in-demand housing market in the Upper Valley?
Is it Hanover, where the town has cited booming home sales as the reason behind a controversial revaluation of property assessments? Or Lebanon, where people want to be near their jobs at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center or Hypertherm? Or maybe Hartford, because not enough homes are available in Lebanon?
Nope, it’s Woodstock.
The picturesque town that looks like Hollywood’s version of a quintessential New England village saw 170 homes sold within the first nine months of 2019, up from 161 homes during the same period a year earlier and the best year-to-date sales tally since the onset of the recession more than 10 years ago.
And within the village, a total of 55 homes sold during the first nine months, up 67% from the record-setting prior year.
My first thought upon reading the market report by the real estate agency Snyder Donegan was that the home sales surge could be blamed on investors’ buying homes for Airbnb rentals.
Woodstock has been grappling with the Airbnb issue as residents have been complaining that the property owners are not abiding by the village’s short-term rental ordinances, which limit how often a home can be rented. Owners of bed and breakfasts, which dot Pleasant Street and Church Street, have also been kicking up a fuss because the short-term rentals are exempt from many of the health and safety regulations that apply to inns.
But David Donegan, a partner in Synder Donegan and one of the most active brokers in Woodstock, has another explanation: the decadelong bull run in stocks, which has increased the wealth of the already well-to-do, who use their stock market gains to buy high-end second homes in Woodstock.
“The stock market has always been tied to Woodstock,” Donegan told me last week. “The town has a history and brand that people know.”
This doesn’t mean they are buying million-dollar-plus properties, although six of those were sold in the first nine months of 2019 compared with eight in the same period in 2018. The leap has occurred in homes listed for under $500,000, with 34 being sold so far this year versus 19 last year, a 79% jump.
But why Woodstock and not other tony towns of the Upper Valley, like Norwich, where home sales this year (25) are down 31% from last year and 60% below their peak in 2015?
That’s not difficult to understand, Donegan said. Woodstock benefits from well-heeled visitors to the Woodstock Inn & Resort and Twin Farms in Barnard.
“The Woodstock Inn’s occupancy has been at an all-time high, and Twin Farms has been doing great,” he said. “That converts into people being introduced to the area who come back to buy here.”
Of course, much of Woodstock’s reputation as a destination and stomping ground for the wealthy traces back to philanthropists Laurance and Mary Rockefeller, who invested heavily in preserving and rehabbing properties in the former 19th-century merchant center, including Billings Farm and the Woodstock Inn.
But perhaps the latest influx might be described: Come for the spa treatments and Anichini sheets; stay for Worthy Kitchen and Wassail Weekend.
The wife-and-husband veterinarian team of Angela and Brad Burrington, “in preparation for an eventual, someday retirement,” have sold their White River Junction and Woodstock veterinary practice, Veremedy Pet Hospital, to VetCor, a Massachusetts-based firm that acquires vet practices across the country but largely leaves the running of the clinics in the hands of local vets.
Their practice will remain the same, the Burringtons assured clients in an announcement; they said they chose VetCor — which has acquired more than 300 practices in 20 years, including Norwich Regional Animal Hospital in 2018 and Sunapee’s Wendell Veterinary Clinic in 2016 — because “rather than buy hospitals and tell the staff what to do, they buy hospitals and tell the staff to keep doing what they have been doing.”
One benefit in being part of VetCor, the Burringtons said, is that they will be able to tap into VetCor’s “large network” to find more staff in addition to being provided the resources to “upgrade” the dental suite at Veremedy’s Woodstock clinic.
Brad Burrington will continue to oversee the business side of Veremedy, while Angela Burrington will continue to manage the clinical side. The Burringtons said they are grateful to VetCor “for providing us an opportunity to someday retire while preserving our company’s culture.”
When employee benefits and insurance agency The Richards Group acquired Centurion Insurance from Mascoma Bank, Richards staff departed their Norwich office and moved across the river to occupy Centurion’s building off Route 10 in Lebanon.
Now Richards is vacating its North Main Street building with some staff moving back into their old offices above the Carpenter & Main restaurant in Norwich while others have moved into new offices at Wheeler Professional Park about a third of a mile south on North Main Street.
Moving their offices back into Norwich’s 1840 House also means Richards has taken the space, which it had listed for sale, off the market.
“Our acquisition of Centurion has gone very well,” reported Thomas Scull, vice president of Richards Group. “We own space in Norwich (and) it’s been vacant upstairs while we lived out the lease Mascoma had in place with the owner, … We’ve added employees and growth has been strong in the Upper Valley, therefore having locations in both Norwich and Lebanon is ideal to support our clientele and employees.”
At the same time, Richards Group and “admired and respected competitor” IPG Employee Benefits, of Keene, N.H., have struck a deal to combine their firms. The agreement provides Vermont-based Richards Group with its second office in New Hampshire after Lebanon.
Fun fact: The 1840 House across from the Norwich Inn in which Richards Group is re-occupying has an illustrious history: was once the offices of insurance magnate Jack Byrne and, before the building converted to commercial units, was the home of Hypertherm co-founder Robert Dean and his family.
Please tell me your business news! Reach me at jlippman@vnews.com.
