Spotlight/housing: Buffalo Niagara home prices look cheap compared with most big cities

The local median sale price of $243,500 during the fourth-quarter of last year was 38% lower than the national median of $391,700, according to a recent report from the National Association of Realtors.

That’s even though median sale prices here have jumped by 16% since the beginning of 2022, easily outpacing the 9.9% increase nationwide, the report said.

If you look at the nation’s 221 biggest metro areas, median home prices in the Buffalo Niagara still rank in the bottom third. Only 64 other big U.S. markets, including Rochester and Syracuse, have lower median sale prices.

And home prices here are a bargain, compared with the nation’s most expensive markets. More than 15% of those big metro areas – 35 in all – have median sale prices that are at least twice as much as in the Buffalo Niagara region.

The median priced home here sells for 84% less than in the nation’s most expensive housing market in San Jose, Calif., where the median home sells for $1.75 million, the report found.

In fact, California is the place to avoid if you’re looking for affordable housing. Eight of the nation’s 10 most costly housing markets are in California. The only others outside California are Honolulu and Boulder, Colo.

Each of those top 10 markets have median sale prices of at least $849,000 – more than three times higher than in the Buffalo Niagara region.