Greater Rochester continues to be a strong market for selling a home. And a highly competitive market with too few choices for buying one.
Take the case of a modest ranch home in East Irondequoit. List price: $169,000.
"There were 87 showings. There were 44 offers. And it sold for 270 (thousand dollars),” said Don Simonetti Jr., president of the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors.
No inspection, with a cash guarantee.
“So that's a problem,” he said.
The market prices out many homebuyers, freezes many homeowners in place. And the trendlines continue to far outpace national averages.
And the results are evident, according to the association’s CEO Jim Yockel: “Reduced pathways to home ownership, diminished economic mobility, and a market that challenges both first-time and move-up buyers.”
The median sale price stands at $265,000 — up nearly 8% from a year ago, the association's latest quarterly market report shows. Nationally, the uptick was just 1% in June, according to Redfin. The number of closed sales locally remains largely unchanged, and houses continue to spend just a week on the market. The association report covers the 11-county Greater Rochester region.
Strong markets currently include North Winton Village, the Park Avenue area, South Wedge and Upper Monroe in the city; Penfield, Pittsford and Victor as far as the suburbs.
New listings edged upward. There were 1,400 active listings across the region at the end of June — which is a nearly 10% increase from where things stood a year ago. Back before the market got so lopsided, there would have been 3,000 more houses for sale.
“I mean, we're going as far back as 2016,” Simonetti said. “We started to notice a bit of an anomaly where the inventory, year-over-year, was disparate. And we kept tracking it.”
But it wasn’t until just before the pandemic in 2020 that buyers and sellers took notice.
“And then COVID really kind of put the thumbprint on it all,” Simonetti said.
“The major issue that we're seeing is with the senior community,” he said. “They're looking to downsize ... but there's nowhere to go.”
Left without options, he said, many are adding accommodations to their existing houses to age in place. But they’re doing so “in properties that probably really aren't suited for them to do that,” Simonetti said. And that has a ripple effect throughout the rest of the market.
“So if we can tap into that (with new housing options), as well as create housing opportunities for everyone along that chain, we will be making an impact,” he said.
The association has pushed options including shared infrastructure costs between developers and municipalities, updating zoning and building codes, use of alternative materials, and encouraging accessory dwelling units and tiny homes.
