Rochester’s housing market continues to get top marks from a well-known real estate website.
Realtor.com has ranked the Rochester metro area as #3 nationally, in its 2024 Top Housing Markets forecast.
These are markets that the website said are poised to see the strongest combined increase in home sales and listing prices in the coming year.
Mike O’Connor is President of the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors. He said that even with the low inventory of houses in recent years, which has helped median sales prices increase, this area is still quite affordable for homebuyers compared to many other areas around the country.
“Because of our low house prices, compared to the majority of the rest of the country...we keep making the list because people realize that, ‘hey, what a value you have in Rochester compared to others.’”
O’Connor does expect Rochester area home prices to decline somewhat in 2024. “I think we’re starting to slow down a bit on the price increase, although, when you consider when people get multiple offers, they still tend to go well above. But on average, I think you’ll see our price increases will slow down a bit next year,” said O’Connor.
Hannah Jones is a senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com. She said that besides the affordability of homes, Rochester also has other factors in its favor.
“Employment is pretty strong, we don’t see the unemployment rate jumping up next year or anything like that,” said Jones. “So it’s still a great economic powerhouse for buyers who are looking to have access to somewhere to get a job, but also looking for the nice home side of the equation as well."
Jones also noted that Realtor.com does track a lot of interest in the Rochester housing market from people current living in other communities around New York state.
“We actually do see that almost three-quarters of the viewership within Rochester is coming from within the state of New York. It looks like there's some demand from outside of the state, but there's also a lot of demand for people who want to stay in the New York area that are maybe looking for something a little bit more affordable or a little bit better quality of life,” said Jones.
The housing forecast from Realtor.com also points to other attributes of the Rochester area, including numerous parks, recreational activities and access to the Finger Lakes.
Realtor.com also ranked Rochester as the hottest housing market in the nation this past August.
