SULLIVAN COUNTY - You can thank COVID-19.

The see-saw year - other- wise known as 2020 - ended on an astonishingly high note for real estate practi- tioners throughout Sullivan County.

The remarkable rebound of the real estate industry from a disasterous 2nd Quarter is due in large part to the desire of city dwellers to escape their close environs, according to Hudson Gate- way Association of Realtors.

“Creativity and technol- ogy... resulted in an histori- cally high single-family residential sales in the third quarter, which, as it turns out, was only a preview of what was to occur in the fourth quarter,” Hudson Gateway reported. “In gen- eral, the days a property stayed on the market were down in all market areas and properties sold very close to, and in many instances above, list price. All are in- dicative of a strong market.”

And one of the strongest markets in all of the Hudson Valley was Sullivan County.

Single family house sales during the fourth quarter in- creased 45.7 percent over 2019 - reaching 437.

And the median sale price

of single family homes went up dramatically during the fourth quarter as well, from $143,646 to $225,000 - a whopping 56.6 percent.

Overall for the year 2020, Sullivan County outpaced the entire Hudson Valley with the highest percentage increase in sales for the year.

Single-family sales of 1,232 units surpassed 2019's num- ber of 979 by 25.8 percent, with a median price increase of 23.8 percent to $195,000 from $142,500 in 2019.

The only challenge for Sul- livan County in 2021 ap- pears to be finding properties to sell as Hudson Valley Gateway reports that year-end inventory is now at 459 single-family units, a 35.4 percent decrease from 2019's 711 and way off the 2018 mark of 812.