Exclusive | Baby Boomers are pouring into Eastern seaboard state — rejecting cities’ unaffordable taxation

The migration to Delaware’s beaches is no longer just about retirees hunting for a cheaper place to spend their golden years.

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As residents continue to flock to the First State’s tiny coastline, the influx is reshaping everything from the homes being built to the farmland surrounding its beach towns.

Low property taxes, no state sales tax and access to the beach have been major draws, particularly for residents arriving from high-tax New York and New Jersey — and even neighboring Pennsylvania.

Indeed, as The Post previously reported, more than 40,000 people have moved to Delaware’s Sussex County since 2020, swelling its population by 17% — roughly five times the national growth rate.

Delaware’s population of residents 65 and older, meanwhile, surged 23% over the same period, more than any other state, as retirees increasingly looked beyond traditional destinations such as Florida.

‘The best thing we ever disagreed on’

Maggie, 64, and Vince Dominici, 70, are among the Northeasterners putting down roots along the Delaware coast. Vince is retired and lives fulltime in Delaware, while Maggie still works and divides her time between Bethany Beach and Bethlehem, Penn.

The Pennsylvania couple discovered Bethany Beach in July 2020 while searching for a family beach house. After spending a day exploring coastal Sussex County, they returned for a weeklong rental in August, bought the house in September and closed that November.

The home needed work, and Vince initially preferred moving farther inland, where their money could buy a newer property. Maggie held out for the location.

Vince now calls it “the best thing we ever disagreed on.”

The couple later downsized to a smaller residence in Bethlehem and expanded and remodeled the Bethany Beach house, which has become the family’s primary gathering place.

Their younger son, Devon Dominici, took the Delaware plunge even further.

After living in his parents’ beach house while working remotely during the pandemic, Devon built a four-bedroom, 3½-bath home of his own in Ocean View, about 2 miles from Bethany Beach.

Property records show the newly built home transferred for nearly $600,000 in April 2023. A bank appraisal conducted in May valued it at 39% more than what it cost him to build, Devon said.

He believes proximity to the water will continue to underpin values in communities such as Bethany Beach, Ocean View, Dewey Beach and Rehoboth Beach, where developable land close to the coastline is limited.

“There’s really nowhere else to go,” he said. “So you’re buying existing inventory.”

A decades-long migration reshapes the coast

The Dominicis are part of a much larger Northeast migration into coastal Delaware — one that local brokers say predates the pandemic by years.

Lee Ann Wilkinson, who has worked in Delaware real estate for decades, said buyers from other states have been retiring to the Delaware beaches for roughly 20 years. What has changed visibly is the amount and type of housing being created to accommodate them.

Sussex County itself issued 3,885 building permits in 2025, according to Census Bureau data.

Many retiring buyers want low-maintenance communities where landscaping is handled for them, along with clubhouses, pools and social activities. First-floor primary bedrooms are another priority.

Developers have even adapted their floor plans to Northeastern transplants.

“A lot of people are looking for basements now, which we didn’t 20 years ago,” Wilkinson told The Post. “Now there’s a lot of homes with a basement because the people that are moving here are accustomed to having basements, so they had to start building basements here.”

Buyers look inland for value

Jen Barrows, a coastal Delaware broker, said a typical retiree she works with has a budget of roughly $400,000 to $800,000.

Even buyers who sell a New York-area home for $1 million or more frequently don’t want to pour all of the proceeds into their next house, she said.

“They want to bank some of that money,” Barrows said. “They don’t want to spend it all on their next house.”

Instead, many look several miles inland, where large planned communities offer amenities while keeping residents within reach of the coast.

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Asked where buyers can find the best value, Wilkinson singled out Milton.

Barrows agreed, calling Milton “the one town that I think is probably the best value and has the most going on for the money.”

She pointed to its historic downtown, library, theater and nearby Dogfish Head brewery, along with a mix of new construction and existing homes.

“Milton’s just really a gem,” Barrows said. “There’s a lot of communities that are still very reasonably priced, from new construction to resale.”

Recent sales data bear out the price gap. Over the three months ending in August, the median sale price was about $439,000 in Milton, compared with roughly $774,000 in Lewes, $859,000 in Bethany Beach and $909,000 in Rehoboth Beach, according to Redfin.

Prices across coastal Delaware, however, are no longer the bargain they once were.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s home-price index for Sussex County climbed about 57% from 2020 through 2025. More recently, the market has begun to normalize: The county’s median sale price was about $439,000 in August, down 1.9% from a year earlier, according to Redfin.

For New Yorker Diana Rohan, a former member of the New York City Police Department who now works as a flight attendant, and her husband, also a former NYPD officer, the tax savings demonstrate why Delaware remains difficult to resist.

The couple bought a Delaware townhouse about five years ago after previously owning a second home in North Carolina.

Their annual Delaware property-tax bill is just $1,071, Rohan said.

Their property and school taxes back in New York? Nearly $17,000 a year.

“It’s a big difference,” Rohan told The Post. “We save a lot of money by purchasing here.”

The townhouse remains a second home shared with their children and other relatives. Delaware offered the couple a beach retreat considerably closer to their family in New York than their former North Carolina property.

Five years after buying, Rohan said they are “very happy” with the decision.

Growth comes at a cost

Still, she has watched the landscape around her change.

“I feel like they’re overdeveloping, though, because people are just buying like crazy,” she said. “There’s a lot of farmland that is turning into development.”

“Everywhere you go, you see the trucks and they’re building all over the place.”

That building boom is one of the growing pains accompanying Delaware’s newfound popularity.

Rapid population growth has brought worsening beach traffic and strained access to doctors and dentists, while rising incomes and housing costs threaten to make Sussex County increasingly difficult to afford for teachers, healthcare workers and other year-round employees.

The Dominicis have experienced those shortages firsthand.

Maggie and Vince said they had to rely on a personal connection to secure Vince a doctor’s appointment. Even then, an appointment they arranged in April was not available until the following February.

Traffic has become another persistent frustration, with ordinarily short drives turning into lengthy crawls during the summer.

Yet those drawbacks haven’t been enough to push the Dominicis away.

Bethany Beach, Devon said, remains something of a quiet bubble between more nightlife-heavy destinations such as Dewey Beach to the north and Ocean City, Md., to the south.

The town’s family-oriented character — along with restrictions on building heights, noise and late-night activity — was part of what attracted his parents in the first place.

Still given the perks of Delaware, Rohan isn’t ready to abandon New York entirely

Her 88-year-old mother remains there and relies on her for help with shopping, appointments and other daily needs. The couple’s daughter and other close relatives also live in New York.

For Rohan, the ability to keep one foot in each state is the point.

“We won’t leave New York full-time,” she said. But Delaware has given the couple a second life by the beach.

“When my husband and I are here, we go out to eat a lot. We go to the bars,” Rohan said. “We walk on the boardwalk. There’s a lot to do.”

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