Latest news with #affordability
Daily Mail
34 minutes ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Cutthroat housing market in lakeside city sees it bursting with bargains - and an average home is just $225K
Rochester, New York, is one of America's most cutthroat city for house prices and while it remains affordable, sales are as competitive as ever. While the city ranks well for affordability, Rochester's home sales are a flurry of bidding wars while real estate agents prepare their clients for auction-like sales with properties often selling for way above asking price. For Rochester realtor Jeff Scofield, the market has seen prices dramatically rise by around 60 percent in the last five years. 'We were slow and steady for most of my career, [it] was a very balanced market and it would take anywhere from a month to a year to sell a house sometimes,' Scofield told While prices have remained affordable, houses are still selling for more than they are listed for. Scofield pointed out that the lack of supply has changed how buyers and sellers are approaching home sales. 'The lack of inventory is the one thing that's been helping prolong us having any sort of slowdown... because there's just so few homes on the market,' he said. 'The buyers all descend on the property and if they like it and it's priced reasonably then they put in offers and it's gone in a week.' Talha Shahid, a realtor based in the area told Yahoo that for example, a home listed at $300,000 will likely sell for $350,000. 'After one or two offers, [clients] kind of get the hang of it, and then they listen to my advice,' Shahid continued. The median house price in the metro area reached just $225,000 at the end of March, according to the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors. While the median rose by 12.5 percent from last year, it remains one of the more affordable cities in America with the median household income sitting at around $67,000 in 2022. 'We're catching up with the rest of the country,' Jonathan long, a mortgage loan consultant in Rochester, also told Yahoo. 'The housing market is a little tough, and mortgage payments are a little tough right now, but all in all, I would still say it's a super affordable place to live... but there's just not enough inventory.' According to the Realtors association, the area had just 913 homes for sale at the end of March which is down 8.1 percent from last year. On average, homes spend just eight days on the market. Due to the lack of homes on the market, Scofield told he has seen buyers list of demands diminish significantly in order to secure a home. 'It used to be that buyers had their list of demands, like we want you to leave the dining room set, the washer, the dryer,' he said. 'Now they go, well, what do you want to take? You know, we'll take whatever you want to leave. You don't even have to clean out the junk in the basement. 'Buyers are being very gracious because they need a place to live and they've lost out on, say, five homes.' Many homeowners have been resistant to selling, especially with heightened uncertainty and climbing mortgage rates. 'If you're sitting on a two and a half percent mortgage interest rate, you're not going to move right now. You're going to sit tight,' Scofield added. Currently, Zillow has 37 homes listed for sale between $200,000 and $250,000. One home, listed for $224,900, has spent five days on Zillow and features two bedrooms and three bathrooms on 1,765 square feet. A $239,900 listed property has spent four days on the site with three bedrooms and two bathrooms on 1,821 square feet. Another three bedroom property, listed for $250,000, has spent seven days on Zillow with three bedrooms and two bathrooms on 1,853 square feet. But Scofield pointed out that despite affordable home prices, taxes in the area have held a significant weight in house listing prices. 'Our taxes are high. You know, New York's got high property taxes, so historically we'd have people coming in from California or out of state and they'd look at a house and go, 'this is only $500,000. This would cost a million where I'm from.'' He said that often, despite the low listing prices, the taxes stun prospective buyers. 'So that's the downside. Our prices are good, but the taxes are high.' Yet, house prices are increasing across the country and Rochester remains relatively affordable. 'You know, average sales price has gone up to probably around three hundred right now for the average in our area,' he said. 'Which is still less than what it is in New York City.'
News.com.au
7 hours ago
- Business
- News.com.au
The top hacks for finding a home at your price range in 2025's market
With the real estate market getting harder for young people to get into, one Queensland couple had to reassess where they could afford a home in today's more expensive landscape. Chris Conway and his wife Ellie began seriously looking for a place in March of 2025 – and after their first contract fell through, the two found themselves priced out of spots close to the city. 'It was kind of a slug,' Mr Conway said. 'We were kind of capped [regarding] where we wanted to go.' 'To be honest, we missed out on some places near the city by mere weeks or months … took us a long time to find something.' Despite being happy with their income, the two found themselves unable to snag a spot in their target suburbs like Coorparoo, Woolloongabba and Carina Heights. It was only when they expanded their search further south did they find a place that fit their needs, buying a townhouse down in Eight Mile Plains. Mr Conway found his new home during a major affordability decline across Queensland. Research from PropTrack showed it is now five times more difficult for people in the state to buy their first property, with a 420 per cent increase in house prices from 1980 to today. When adjusted for inflation, the price of a house – $32,750 – would represent $174,600 in today's purchasing power, while Brisbane's median house price sits at $910,000. Units saw a smaller but still significant rise, jumping from $38,750 in 1980 to $636,000 in 2025. Mr Conway said he eventually came around to the idea of living in a home further down south. 'We initially ruled it out as being too far away from the inner city, where we work,' he said. 'The difference is that we were able to get a much better home by going further out … if we were closer into the city we would have been in a smaller apartment in a very urbanised area, so we're pretty happy with being further away now and getting a bit more greenery.' Mr Conway said he and his wife could only afford the place thanks to first home government guarantees, and was optimistic about future affordability plans under the Labor government. 'I think it's getting more achievable with government schemes, but without it we wouldn't have been able to buy right now,' he said. 'We'd have been saving up for a few more years.' The top piece of advice Mr Conway has for young home hunters? 'Just to be on the phone more,' he said. 'Communicating with real estate agents, and really trying to get as much information out of them as you can, and touching base with them to see what you can do to be in the best position to secure a property.'
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Here's where normal people can still buy homes, according to real estate data
(NEXSTAR) – If you've given up on home ownership, you're not alone. The dream has grown unaffordable and unrealistic for Americans in many major cities. 'The rapid rise in home values coupled with the doubling of mortgage rates caused the cost of owning a home to soar. Unfortunately, incomes just haven't kept up. That lowered affordability everywhere,' said Zillow senior economist Orphe Divounguy. But if you look closely, some pockets of America are still considered 'affordable' to the average family. In a data analysis shared with Nexstar, Zillow identified which cities are affordable by determining where the median-income family is able to spend less than one-third of their income on housing costs. Looking for a home under $300K? Try these 10 major US metros If you're able to scrape together a 20% down payment, several dozen metro areas remain affordable for a median family looking to buy. However, most people don't have that much cash sitting around in the bank. When you set the target to a more reasonable 10% down payment, only 11 metro areas are still considered 'affordable': Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Toledo, Ohio Columbia, South Carolina Syracuse, New York Jackson, Mississippi Wichita, Kansas Akron, Ohio Augusta, Georgia Little Rock, Arkansas St. Louis, Missouri Birmingham, Alabama Most places that still rank as affordable are found in the Midwest and the South, where zoning codes tend to be more lenient and builders have been able to respond to rising demand more quickly. 'At the start of the pandemic, when residential mobility increased, home values in the Midwest, Great Lakes region and more inland South shot up just as fast as the rest of the country, and even faster in some metros. But home values in these regions — for the most part — were relatively less expensive to begin with,' Divounguy said. 'So even with all that growth, many of them are still relatively more affordable, especially if you have access to a large down payment.' If you're looking for the lowest prices overall, Redfin recently released a list of 10 major metro areas where homes are still under $300,000. Those willing to relocate to Detroit will find some of the best deals. The median sale price there is $180,000. Amazon reportedly issuing refunds for returns made years ago As mentioned before, if prospective homebuyers are able to put a larger payment down up-front, their real estate prospects expand. Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Oklahoma City all become affordable to a median-income family with a 20% down payment. (See the full list at the bottom of this story.) For now, a few Upstate New York cities remain on the list, but that could soon change, according to Divounguy. Buffalo has been one of the hottest housing markets in the country the past couple years and supply isn't keeping up with demand. 'Strong job growth in the area has far outstripped new permits, and inventory of homes is nearly half what it was before the pandemic. Buffalo was previously one of the most accessible large cities in the nation. Now a mortgage for a typical home there is unaffordable for a family making the median household income, even with a 20% down payment.' Metro area Total monthly home payment (with 20% down) Pittsburgh, PA $1,601 Toledo, OH $1,434 Columbia, SC $1,539 Syracuse, NY $1,705 Jackson, MS $1,367 Wichita, KS $1,579 Akron, OH $1,671 Augusta, GA $1,607 Little Rock, AR $1,584 St. Louis, MO $1,894 Birmingham, AL $1,706 Cincinnati, OH $1,937 Indianapolis, IN $1,963 Oklahoma City, OK $1,765 Detroit, MI $1,839 Baton Rouge, LA $1,662 Rochester, NY $1,902 Cleveland, OH $1,753 McAllen, TX $1,414 Louisville, KY $1,786 Chicago, IL $2,268 Des Moines, IA $2,138 Omaha, NE $2,147 Columbus, OH $2,075 Greensboro, NC $1,696 Tulsa, OK $1,751 Memphis, TN $1,726 Winston, NC $1,746 Houston, TX $2,216 Scranton, PA $1,604 Greenville, SC $1,961 Baltimore, MD $2,674 El Paso, TX $1,692 Kansas City, MO $2,254 Harrisburg, PA $2,158 Minneapolis, MN $2,711 New Orleans, LA $1,753 Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
National Post
2 days ago
- Business
- National Post
Conrad Black: Carney continues on a path of mindless globalism
It was a gracious gesture for King Charles III and Queen Camilla to come to Ottawa for 24 hours to open Parliament and symbolize Canada's close relations with the United Kingdom and other senior Commonwealth nations, but the speech from the throne was so general, we might have reserved the distinction of Their Majesties' presence for a more substantive policymaking occasion. There was a pledge to make housing more affordable many years after what should have been the starting date for such a policy before millions of otherwise welcome immigrants were admitted to the country, furthering an acute housing shortage among Canadians of modest income. It was also good to hear the King state, on behalf of the federal government, the determination to protect and advance the rights of all Canadians. It would have been useful and pleasing to know if this included a departure from the federal government's policy of passivity toward Quebec's suppression of the English language in that province. Article content Article content One specific point in the throne speech that was particularly welcome was the reference to the federal government's determination to eliminate internal trade barriers. If anything useful may ultimately be judged to have come from the current controversy with the United States, it is that U.S. President Donald Trump highlighted the exorbitant cost of some agricultural products as a result of the supplementary payments consumers are forced to make to certain farmers in this country. As I have written here often before, if it is considered public policy to supplement the incomes of these farmers, it should be done directly and not by overcharging the entire Canadian public for important categories of food. In the same category is the government's implicit promise to contribute more to our own national defence. This has long and justifiably been a sore point with the United States, which effectively has guaranteed Canada's national security since President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared at Queens university in 1938 that he would not 'stand idly by' if Canada were attacked. Canada has a distinguished military history of only going to war for good causes and never out of national greed, fighting bravely and almost always with volunteers and always on the winning side. We are not freeloaders, but we have been freeloaders in NATO for 30 years and there appears to be a consensus that this should stop. Article content Article content The King's remarks began with the now practically obligatory reference to being on land 'unceded' by Algonquin and Anishinaabeg peoples — an experience, the King advised, that reminds us of our 'shared history as a nation.' The King has thus been delicately dragooned into the quagmire of the official relationship of Canada with its Indigenous peoples. The federal Parliament may indeed stand on land unceded by the Algonquins and Anishinaabeg, but this should not be allowed to imply that Canada, prior to the arrival of the British and the French in the 16th and 17th centuries, was populated and occupied, in the sense of being ruled and governed, by the Native peoples. Article content Article content The Native peoples were in almost all cases nomadic and relatively sparse in numbers. The inference has been incited that those who have immigrated, mainly from Europe to Canada, over the last 450 years invaded someone else's country. I yield to few in my desire to make the country's policy toward Indigenous peoples more just and productive, but when the Europeans arrived, Canada was unsettled, and in no sense an organized political entity. It was chronically underpopulated, and those who lived within our present borders were talented and skilful tribes and clans sharing what was essentially a Stone Age civilization frequently engaged in internecine violence. Let us by all means pay them homage and embrace them as fellow Canadians, but not in a manner that could be construed as undermining the right of the rest of us to be here and negating the fact that our forebears brought Canada swiftly up to the most advanced conditions of contemporary civilization.
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Ruby Eastwood: Why would anyone choose to live in a city as ridiculous as Dublin?
You hear stories about how people survive in this impossibly expensive city. Couples who stay in loveless relationships because they can't afford to separate. Strangers from Facebook groups sleeping in the same room. A bed rented by one person in the day and a different person at night. Tenants paying their landlords with sex . Artists squatting illegally in their studios. People sleeping in storage units. These stories are full of human ingenuity and degradation. They're really quite strange when you think about them properly. The strangest part is how common they've become. [ Ireland's rising rents: 'Our budget would have been €1,300 a month, there isn't even anything listed for that' Opens in new window ] About a year ago, my best friend in Dublin moved to Berlin , where he says it's still possible to be broke and live well. When he left his damp, windowless room near Connolly Station – which cost just under a thousand euros a month – there were people queuing for the privilege of being next. Now he lives in a sunlit attic for a fraction of the price, and drinks Fritz Colas and Berliner Pilsners on the rooftop. Every so often, during our calls, he tries to convince me to join him. His logic is hard to fault: Dublin is untenable. Unless you have private wealth or can stomach a corporate job, you resign yourself to chronic financial dread – the kind that squats over your life like Fuseli's goblin in the painting. At least in other expensive cities, such as New York or London, you can escape your overpriced room into a pulsing metropolis, with endless distractions and some of them free. In Dublin, all you can really do is go to the pub, and even that costs too much. The city is very small, and it seems to constrict as the years pass. You can't leave the house without seeing a face you know. In fact, there are no faces you don't know. They approach from all sides. And the rain. The constant rain. I recognise the truth in this, and it's hard to argue with. Why would anyone choose to live in such a ridiculous city? I don't know if I really understand my own reasons for staying. I suspect they're quite shameful: they have more to do with a romantic or aesthetic impulse than with anything practical. READ MORE I just like Dublin. I like the harsh beaches and the Martello towers. The silvery, rinsed-out light. I like walking through the sprawling industrial wastelands on the city's fringes. I like the canals in spring, all fragrant with weeds and strewn with sunk bicycles. Strangers here seem to want to tell you things – like the old lady who, for no discernible reason, wanted to talk about the time she heard Bob Marley singing Redemption Song at Dalymount Park. You witness things. Once, on Talbot Street, I saw a man with an arm in a cast get into a physical fight with a man on crutches. I like Dublin on the rare occasions when it snows. I like the hot, malty smell from the Guinness factory. I like the Liberties, where you can hear the quiet rush of subterranean rivers, and church bells, and horses' hooves. I like that ugly statue of Oscar Wilde with the pervert's smile. I even like the loud, sentimental music on Grafton Street, and the whiskey-soaked ballads streaming from the pubs in Temple Bar. The idea of leaving Dublin becomes more, not less, appealing as I become more entrenched here ... we can weather all sorts of adversity, but banal contentment is the real deadener Mainly, though, I like Dublin because I chose it. The first time I visited, I was 21. I had some half-baked but very attractive notion of what Ireland represented: something to do with resistance, with migration and nostalgia and alcoholism. I had a copy of Finnegans Wake and I think I got about three pages in on the bus ride into town before falling asleep. When I woke up, I scrambled off and left the book behind. I had oysters for lunch that day and pictured my whole life in the city. It felt just the right size to make mine. I've lived in bigger cities: Barcelona, where I grew up, and London, where I lived before coming here; and smaller, random places: Brighton, Siena. I've spoken to quite a few Dubliners who are desperate to move to other European cities and can't understand my decision to stay. There's a kind of faith involved in choosing a city. You respond to its atmosphere, its pace and texture, the way it opens up to you – or doesn't. Dublin, for all its flaws, felt like it might yield something if I stayed long enough. The beginning in a new place is always the hardest part: slow, bitty, full of doubts. I didn't know anyone. I'd been accepted into a master's programme but couldn't fund it and had to defer my place by a year. When my sublet ended, I had to return to London for a while because I couldn't find another room. I worked in bars and signed up with a temp agency that sent me on scattershot catering shifts around the city. The jobs were mostly tedious, but they offered a kind of education. I learned how the different bits of the city fit together, like a giant jigsaw. The glassy conference rooms down by the Quays. The Leopardstown racecourse, where West End men come on weekends to get extravagantly drunk. The grand Georgian hotels and restaurants, where they throw out so much good food it makes you want to cry. The methadone clinic at the end of the bus line where you hear the wildest conversations and sometimes get drawn in. [ Dublin: The 13th best city in the world ... supposedly Opens in new window ] It occurs to me that the difficulty of establishing yourself in a city confers a special kind of meaning on your relationship to it. Like in a toxic romance, if you can weather the lows, the highs are incredible. Who knows – maybe the expensiveness and impossibility of a place like Dublin, far from being deterrents, actually deepen its appeal, the way we fetishise designer handbags but never their identical fakes. I've always had this wrong-headed idea that the value of something is revealed by the sting of its attendant sacrifice. Gradually, my life in Dublin took on more solidity. I was lucky enough to receive a university grant. I met people. I signed a lease. I moved in with a friend and we painted all the walls fresh white. She bought velvet floral curtains in pastel colours and hung them in the livingroom. I found a few prints in charity shops. I got a Persian carpet from a lady in Blackrock Market. A friend gave me a desk she no longer needed. Sometimes the city sends you little signs of progress. The quiet, stoical man in the corner shop at the end of my road has started calling me 'honey', and occasionally smiles. I have a friend's spare keys on my keyring. I know the name of my neighbour's dog. I know which cobbler to go to for the best deal. Ruby Eastwood Still, there are days when I fantasise about leaving. It would be nice to buy lunch in a cafe without feeling frivolous. It would be wonderful not to feel like I'm stuck in a recurring nightmare every time rent comes around. Oddly, the idea of leaving Dublin becomes more, not less, appealing as I become more entrenched here. Maybe that's no coincidence. To return to the toxic romance analogy: we can weather all sorts of adversity, but banal contentment is the real deadener. Recently, I spoke to a friend in London who's moving to Iowa City for a master of fine arts degree. He told me he's spent hours on Google Maps, exploring the place through Street View. The images all seem to have been captured on sunny days – it looks green and beautiful, full of classic American wood-frame houses. He's begun to associate the town with Iowa Dream by Arthur Russell, all melodic guitar lines and soft lyrics. The self he pictured living there was different from the one he knows in London: less anxious, more social, content to spend long afternoons drifting around and hanging out with friends. [ Trevor White: I love Dublin. But there's no point in pretending it's a great small city Opens in new window ] I also indulge in this kind of cartographic dreaming. I explore prospective cities on Street View: Beirut, Paris, Berlin. It's a surreal activity. You pick a spot on the map and drag yourself along, imagining a parallel life. Sometimes, from one click to the next, the sun disappears and rain slicks the tarmac. Figures with blurred faces vanish or are replaced by others in different clothes further down the road. You realise the map is stitched together from footage taken on different days, in different moods. Another thing my friend hinted at stayed with me: that emigration can be indistinguishable from escapism. When I imagine myself in another city, I don't picture myself as I am now, but a physically and intellectually tweaked version. In Paris, I'm gaunt with a perfect bob; I smoke straights and read Lacan for pleasure. In Beirut, I am somehow fluent in Arabic; I drink less; I am sharper and more spiritual. I study ancient manuscripts. In Berlin, I am reunited with my best friend and we live together like Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith before it all fell apart, looking cool and making great art. The fantasy isn't really about the new city. It's about becoming a new person. [ Emer McLysaght: Five lessons Dublin can learn from Zurich Opens in new window ] There's a way of reading this that feels a little bleak. You could say it reflects a kind of ambient self-disgust, or an inability to accept life as it is. A symptom of being stuck in the wheel of samsara: trapped in a cycle of craving and disappointment, forever projecting some improved self just over the horizon, never quite admitting that the old self follows you everywhere. There's truth in that, but it's not the whole story. There's another, more generous way to see it. Maybe it isn't escapism, but a kind of unconscious recognition that we are always in the process of becoming. Cities aren't just stages on which our lives play out. They are the biggest collaborators. They shape how we speak, how we move, how we think. They alter our trajectories. When you choose to stay in a place, you're submitting to its influence. To live in a city is to enter into a kind of contract. You agree to spend your time, your energy, and your labour in its service. In return, it promises transformation, but on its own terms. Like the enchanted gift in a fairy tale, the city will change you in ways you can't predict, and not all of them will be kind. The point is you don't get to choose. It's a gamble. Is it one worth taking? Ruby Eastwood is a writer living in Dublin
