Is The Housing Market Any Better In Western New York?

If you have been house hunting at all this year, you will know that the market has been ridiculously crazy. You have probably heard from friends, “It will get better,” but has it?

If your offers continue to get beat out by others with waived home inspections paying more than 20% over the asking price, you may have started to lose hope…especially if you have been searching for a home since the beginning of summer. 

After a quick poll via the Buffalo subReddit, there are a few people in Western New York who have been able to secure the listing at asking price, but you may have noticed that there are less options now as there were months ago. 

One of the main reasons that people have pulled listings or decided to refrain from selling their homes is because of the high interest rates. Those people who were planning to move out of their homes are leery about how the interest rates would affect their new mortgage. 

Because less homes are on the market, prices are able to stay high with the supply of homes low. 

It’s all supply and demand, and the only real solution to lower costs is to keep building homes for the market, both single family homes and mixed use. 

One person analyzed the data in Western New York to figure out the simple question: why aren’t more houses being built? 

Zoning laws affect housing more than you’d think – in a number of American cities, and Buffalo’s zoning laws are pretty restrictive. Taking a look at zoning map for Buffalo's zoning code, you can get an idea where zoning is preventing things from becoming more dense with homes. You can see the three images that one researcher provided of the Elmwood village: one, two, three.

Demand is huge in the Elmwood village, especially with SUNY Buffalo State campus being right around the corner. Many college students and young adults look to live in the Elmwood village area, which increases the demand. However, most homes in Elmwood are split up into a makeshift apartment complex to satisfy the demand with the little supply, which makes the rent for apartments extremely high. You may see one  bedroom apartments listed for $1300 per month or more in this area.  

Most houses on the market now are flipped houses that were purchased with the intent of being resold. Typical homes are not being listed as those homeowners are locked in with great interest rates, so you may be able to snag a reasonable deal on a flipped home until the market settles a little more.