UTICA, N.Y. — The New York Post published an article that said despite Utica being an affordable place to buy a home, “no one” wants to live there.
The article, written by Mary Jacob, highlights median home values and says that the cost of living is 33% below the New York State average.
“For a New Yorker priced out of literally everything, that sounds like a fantasy. So why does the population keep shrinking?” Jacob wrote.
She said Utica is losing population at about 0.74% a year based on statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.
In the article, Jacob said the exodus started with the loss of major employers like General Electric and Lockheed Martin.
Both companies left in the 1990s.
Amanda Reinfelds is a real estate agent from Coldwell Banker Faith Properties.
A client, whose house is featured in the article, sent it to Reinfelds.
Reinfelds said the headline was “harsh.”
“I saw the headline and was like, ‘Wait a second. What do you mean nobody wants to live here?'” she said.
Reinfelds has been selling homes in the Utica area in 2009.
She said the housing market in Utica has been strong for the past five to six years, for there are more buyers than inventory.
“When a house is listed, especially if it’s an attractive price, and it’s in a price range that’s affordable for a lot of people as well, there’s always more buyers for that house than there are similar houses on the market,” she said.
Reinfelds said that in the law of supply and demand, if there’s less supply and more demand, people are all going to make an offer for a particular listing.
“That’s how we get multiple offers rolling and the prices get driven up, which of course makes our market better,” she said.
The average sales price has increased “significantly,” she said, and when she started, it was as low as $120,000. Now, she said it is “roughly” $220,000 in Utica.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that from 2020 to 2025, there has been a 3.5% decline in the population.
In the New York Post article, it quotes an anonymous source who said, “Price isn’t the problem. Everything else is the problem.”
“Unemployment hovers around 4.5 to 6 percent, according to the Department of Labor, and the city continues to bleed residents even as home prices—cheap by any national comparison—keep climbing,” it said.
The article also states the poverty rate in Utica sits above 27%.
According to the Census Bureau, the persons in poverty is at 27.5%.
Reinfelds said people do leave the area for warm weather, jobs, family or life changes.
She also said there are jobs in the City that draw people in.
There are also people who move away and then come back, Reinfelds said.
“I know that when you talk to people in the community…they want to say, ‘Oh, everybody’s leaving. Nobody stays here, nobody wants to be here.’ And that’s not true,” she said.
Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente said the City offers jobs in healthcare, finance, technology and manufacturing.
He said more houses are being occupied, and there has been private investment made towards restoring Utica’s housing.
“That’s what they should be looking at; that would paint a completely different picture than this fake article,” Picente said.
He said he felt “outraged” reading the New York Post article, and he said that the statistics in the article are inaccurate. They will push for a correction, he said.
“I think you need to come here, and I think you need to take more photos of really what this community looks like,” he said.
NEWSChannel 2 reached out to Utica Mayor Mike Galime, but he has not responded.
NEWSChannel 2 also reached out to the New York Post reporter, Mary Jacob, but has not heard back.
The New York Post published an article that said despite Utica being an affordable place to buy a home, “no one” wants to live there.