A recent report from a national real estate website gives high marks to the Rochester area housing market.
Realtor.com said that the Rochester area ranked as the hottest housing market in the nation in August. The last time that happened wasn’t all that long ago, the local metro area got a similar designation in September 2022.
The real estate website looks at factors such as the demand for houses. The report says that Rochester properties drew in nearly three times the number of views compared to the typical property across the U.S.
Mike O’Connor is president of the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors. He said that even with a lack of inventory having impacted local housing sales in recent months, there is still a lot of interest by potential homebuyers.
“We still have so many buyers; many areas are seeing a decrease in the buyers, but honestly, I think part of it is the fact that there is such a pent-up demand, some buyers have decided to hold back or wait or hold off because of interest rates (but) we don’t see any decline in interest rates, any time soon,” said O’Connor.
The Realtor.com report also cited the affordability of Rochester homes compared to many other places. It said that locally, there is a median listing price of $250,000 which is $185,000 less than the median price for the nation overall.
O’Connor noted that while housing prices locally rose in August, they have fallen back somewhat since then.
“They’re settling down in terms of the price increase and the rapid price increase that we’ve been seeing, 10, 15, 20 percent (are) leveling off, they’re not decreasing, though," said O'Connor, who noted that home prices are "just leveling off from the steady increase that we’ve been seeing over the last several years.”
And O’Connor noted that even with the lack of inventory of available homes, demand in the Rochester by prospective homebuyers is still very high.
