As flowers and ‘For Sale’ signs appear in yards across CNY, how will the real estate sales season shape up?
By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
The housing market has been on the upswing for sellers, and Bill Galloway, owner and licensed real estate broker at Century 21 Galloway Realty in Oswego, doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.
“The market is still very active for very limited inventory,” Galloway said. “We have multiple buyers in the market. It’s very active residentially.”
In Fulton, Leah Haggerty noted that inventory is also low.
“Compared with spring season last year, inventory this spring season is down about 13% in Oswego County and down about 8% in Onondaga County,” Haggerty said.
She is a licensed real estate broker and owner of Century 21 Leah’s Signature with offices in Fulton and Liverpool. “If interest rates drop, that should open up the market this spring. Lower interest rates open the marketplace to a wider range of potential buyers and increases seller confidence to list their homes in search of another home for themselves.”
The trend of low inventory holds true elsewhere in CNY.
Gwenn McDonald, owner and licensed real estate broker at Around Syracuse Realty in Baldwinsville, said that in the Oswego, Onondaga, Madison, Cayuga, Oneida and Sullivan County areas, “it’s still a very strong seller’s market. Even properties that are distressed are selling. Maybe it will take longer, like 10 days versus three. It’s a very strong market.”
She added that the median price for the area for a residential home is $215,000, up 10.3% from 2023. Houses average six days on the market compared with two to three weeks on the market normally. But McDonald said that overpriced properties will take longer to sell.
Although higher interest rates may seem a deterrent to homeownership, McDonald said that to most, “owning a home outweighs the increased interest rates — and they’re really not that bad.”
McDonald estimates that the CNY housing market currently has a 1.4-month supply of homes, what she calls “no inventory.” This is problematic in that for people who can easily sell their house will now need a new home and have no place to go.
“Unless it’s new construction or they’re moving out of the market, there’s hesitation on selling,” McDonald said. “If they sell, they’ll get more than they thought, but when they buy, they’ll be in a predicament. But at least they’ll have more equity to move from one to the next.”
McDonald thinks that the low inventory has been caused in part by the time it takes for new construction to be ready for buyers, along with inflation increasing the cost for new homes.
Anytime the housing market across a region experiences substantial growth, a bust typically follows as home values plummet and buying slows. McDonald doesn’t see that happening in CNY anytime soon, thanks in part to the boom in local jobs such as those generated by the planned Micron’s new CNY facility.
“We call it ‘The Micron Effect,’” she said. “We have a shield over CNY right now. Say the national market is going to burst. We’re going to have a shield over us. CNY historically has been behind with the national market. We never had the appreciation of housing. We had Carrier, Chrysler and others leave. With Micron, we have good jobs coming in and they’re solid jobs. Amazon has helped. Jobs are good for the housing market.”
