A recent national survey ranks the town of Irondequoit as the top market in the U.S. for first time homebuyers.
The survey is by the website realtor.com, and among the criteria the survey looked at is the availability of homes for sale and their affordability, especially for people in the 25-to- 34-year-old age bracket.
The report noted that Irondequoit has a median listing price of $187,000.
Mike O’Connor is the President of the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors, and he said that part of the reason for that relatively affordable home sale price is the fact that Irondequoit has some older housing stock.
But he said that town is not along in the Rochester area for having a good reputation for affordability.
“Right now, I think our entire metro area is a good deal,” said O’Connor. “That’s one of the reasons why we continually make these top 10, top 100 places to be, is the quality of life. And the price of housing, even though our price of housing has increased substantially, we’re still one of the most affordable areas in the entire country.”
The realtor.com survey looks at other factors as well, including job opportunities, the average commute time to work, and the measure of the “culture and liveliness’ of an area.
One issue that Irondequoit and many other local communities struggle with in the housing market is not having enough housing stock to meet demand. O’Connor noted that the amount of available housing inventory in Irondequoit is quite short, less than a three-week supply right now, which means when homes go up for sale, they don’t stay on the market for very long.
Town Supervisor Andrae Evans, who just took office this year, said that the realtor.com survey didn’t come as a big shock to him.
“I’m not surprised at all, when we moved here 30 years ago, that’s exactly what I saw,” said Evans. “What I saw was that it was an affordable place to live, there were great schools. I used to jog to Seneca Park, Seneca Park is right there, we have Durand Eastman Park, we have beautiful coastlines.”
Evans noted that Irondequoit has people of various age ranges living there, and he hopes publicity from this housing survey will encourage more people to consider moving to the town.
Last December, realtor.com ranked the Rochester metro as #3 in a survey of thetop housing markets. Those are markets that the website said are poised to see the strongest combined increase in home sales and listing prices in the coming year.
