By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
Hundreds of miles north of Manhattan there is a city in upstate New York where buyers are pushing and shoving to purchase property at above the asking price. All the hallmarks of a booming real estate market are evident in this city of Rochester, New York. Located 350-miles away from the Big Apple, in the North West, only two-hours away from the Canadian border, Rochester is becoming one of the hottest sellers’ markets today.
As reported by the NY Post, this city, with a population of roughly 200,000, is seeing bidding wars for listed properties, all-cash offers, and listings are selling for above the asking price just hours after hitting the market. House hunters need to check websites for listings daily to keep up with the speedy turnover. “I’ve been doing this for 42 years,” local agent and broker Tony Ruggeri told 13 WHAM local news, “and I’ve never seen anything like this.” “Make sure you have cash,” added Ruggeri. “If you have a home to sell, forget about it. Don’t even bother, and be ready to go.”
Recently Ruggeri represented a home at 1123 Stonegate Drive, which had 23 showings in a single day. Needless to say the home has already been sold. Built in 1985, the four-bedroom 1,760-square-foot home, in the Rochester suburb of Webster, listed for $179,900 on Feb. 12th. One of the couples who rushed to see the house, newlyweds Kailey Suhr and Joseph Colway, were just on their way back from their honeymoon. They have been searching for a home since October. “There hasn’t been a lot to look at yet; stuff is going very quickly,” said Colaway. Median listing prices for homes in the city are at about $279,900.
Andy Kachaylo, a local realtor and the president of the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors, also said he’s astounded by the frenzy of their real estate market. “The activity is tremendous,” Kachaylo said. When searching for an answer as to the cause of the sudden influx in prices, the only result is the obvious: there is an increase in demand. This is probably a function of low supply. The number of homes available for purchase is at the lowest point it’s been in the past seven years. At the end of 2013, there were 5,446 homes for sale, that’s a whopping 3,017 more homes available than there were at the end of 2019. There are also more local buyers, in addition to buyers who are looking to come in from out of state.
