Upstate NY Luxury Real Estate

Not quite what you're asking, but I offer it anyway: I bought in Putnam in 2001, at a good price for a very modest house on a lake. Prices and taxes (which were never low) have skyrocketed, and there is now a wave of foreclosures and pre-foreclosures in the area. The problem (probably the same as higher up the Hudson, too) is that recent purchasers paid unsustainable (for now, anyway) prices and the foreclosures are still asking more (high mtg amounts) than the properties will be worth for a time. You'd be best off with something, if you could find it, like an estate sale, where the last owners lived there for a long time and there can be more flexibility in price because they are making money most of the way down.

I considered buying the pre-foreclosure next door to me. Then I realized that, for half the ask, I could improve my own property to the same point, and I have a much better view, even if I have a smaller place. Since I use it as a weekend place, and mainly in summer, that made much more sense to me.