Officials with the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors are very positive about prospects for the local housing market this year, even with the fact that sales of existing homes in the 2nd quarter were six percent lower than they were a year ago.
President of the association, Andy Burke, says the lower number on sales is due mainly to the fact that there just wasn't enough inventory out there to satisfy demand.
"When you look at closings compared to last year, we're looking at really low inventory levels so the closings will continue to be low until inventories improve. Going into the third quarter we're seeing inventories rise already, new listings coming on line."
Burke says that as more homes come on the market, there will be demand for them.
"If we'd had more inventory we would have had far more sales for the second quarter. It was already a strong quarter. There are many buyers out there that found themselves competing in multiple offers numerous times and still have not bought houses. Had the inventory been there, those buyers would have already probably found a house."
And more homes may be coming onto the market. The association says that new listings of existing houses rose by more than 13 percent in the second quarter compared to the same period last year.
Burke says evidence of the sellers market is that home sale prices continue to rise. They were up about two and a half percent compared to last year at this time.
In terms of new home construction, Rick Herman of the Rochester Home Builders Association says sales were generally flat year over year, but he says that should be looked at as a positive, considering the impact that weather had on home building earlier this year.
"Considering the tremendous problem that we had in the first quarter of getting homes started and into the ground because of the weather and the rain that we've experienced this spring and early summer, we think that we're really ahead of the game from where we were last year."
Herman says the backlog of home building due to the weather as well as an increase in home remodeling has actually created a bit of a shortage for some home builders in trying to find enough construction employees to handle all the work.
