The upstate New York region, much like the rest of the country, is experiencing high housing prices and low inventory. WAMC’s Southern Adirondack Bureau Chief Lucas Willard attended a discussion on the local real estate market.
Wednesday morning on the campus of SUNY Adirondack in Queensbury, Dr. Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at the National Association of Realtors, appeared virtually with some statistics.
Over the last 12 months, in the Glens Falls and Albany regions, single-family home values have gone up about $50,000 in price.
And that creates a challenge, said Yun.
“With the rise in home sales, we’ve really elevated the prices and now the prices are becoming challenging for first-time buyers.”
While new housing construction is increasing, it is struggling to keep up with demand. Construction in the region has been under average for the last 15 years, according to Yun.
Yun also predicts mortgage rates going up half a percentage point to 3.5 percent by the end of the year, but he also sees a decrease in the rate of home sales in 2022 compared to right now.
With sales of single-family homes and vacation homes soaring, taxes and the higher cost of mortgages are making it difficult for first-time home buyers, said Mary Peyton, president of the Southern Adirondack Association of Realtors.
“So it’s the cost of mortgages, because that for a first-time homebuyer is a very difficult cost for them to bear, and also the taxes, because the taxes, being what they are, play into the amount of home a first-time homebuyer can purchase.”
But EDC Warren County president Jim Siplon sees an opportunity, if communities can rise to meet the challenge of providing the necessities for people seeking to relocate.
“A broadband connection and home. If you cannot provide that as a community, you cannot participate in this wave of economic development.”
Using his next-door neighbors as an example of the changing workplace economy – a young couple who relocated to Glens Falls from Brooklyn after the onset of the pandemic and are now working remotely – Siplon said the changing times call for an “all hands on deck” collaboration and investment.
Siplon heralded the recent submission of a federal grant application from six upstate counties seeking to connect nearly 3,000 homes and businesses to high-speed internet.
“We just submitted a grant on behalf of entire region, six counties in the region, to go seek broadband funding to get the remainder of those communities connected. That’s the first time those six counties have ever got together to work on a shared problem like that,” said Siplon.
Called the North Country Broadband Alliance, the effort was coordinated in part through EDC Warren County.
Siplon also touched on the slow pace of new home construction.
Town of Hampton Supervisor Dave O’Brien, who chairs the Warren-Washington IDA, was in the audience. Speaking from his seat, he said businesses seeking to relocate to the area have been wary of the lack of housing for potential employees.
Responding to O'Brien, Siplon said developers need to be part of the discussion in expanding growth beyond the bustling Lake George area.
“The construction on the lake will continue unabated. As much as it’s available, there is unlimited demand for it. That is a good thing. It can’t be the only thing. And we gotta figure out how to get all this activity, as Dave is saying, so that we can support businesses of one, businesses of 10, businesses of 200.”
