The Seller's Market in Rochester, New York Is Cooling – But Only for Homes That Aren't Ready

Written by:

Alejandra Rodriguez

Date:

10 Aug 2026

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For six years, Rochester’s residential real estate market operated under a simple rule: list it, and it sells. Property values climbed roughly 75 to 80 percent since the pandemic began, inventory shrank by half, and homes routinely drew multiple offers within days. That era is ending, not with a crash, but with a split. Homes that are well-prepared, well-located, and well-priced still move fast. Everything else is sitting.

Mark Siwiec, Broker/Owner & CEO of Elysian Homes in Rochester, describes a market that has bifurcated sharply over the past three to four months. Sellers who assume the conditions of 2023 still apply – that any home with walls and a roof will generate multiple offers well above asking – are finding that assumption no longer holds. Meanwhile, sellers who have staged their homes, maintained them, and priced them based on current comparables are still generating competitive offers. “The rules of the game have changed,” Siwiec says.

More Supply, Fewer Buyers

The shift is being driven from both sides of the supply-demand equation. On the inventory side, Rochester’s six-county region had roughly 600 single-family homes available during the first quarter of 2025. That figure has risen to approximately 850 – a 25 percent increase – though still far below the roughly 1,750 homes that were available in 2017.

At the same time, buyer activity is declining. Siwiec attributes the pullback to a cluster of concerns: mortgage rates, inflation, falling consumer confidence, and geopolitical uncertainty. “A lot of buyers who were searching aggressively are now stepping away,” he says.

The result is a market moving toward what Siwiec calls “greater equilibrium,” still tilted toward sellers, but no longer as lopsided as it was. For buyers, this means less competition on individual listings and more room to negotiate. For sellers, it means preparation and pricing discipline now separate homes that sell in days from homes that sit for weeks.

Price Reductions Are Becoming Normal

The behavioral change is visible in day-to-day transactions. Siwiec describes a listing that went on the market the previous week at a set price and did not sell, an outcome that would have been unusual in prior years, when most Rochester properties sold within seven to ten days. After a $25,000 price reduction, the home drew an offer within six hours.

That pattern – overpricing, sitting, then reducing – is becoming more frequent. The brokerage’s advice to sellers has shifted accordingly: invest in preparation before listing, price based on what the market will bear today rather than what it rewarded a year ago, and expect that homes requiring concessions will take longer to move.

Siwiec says his firm rarely sees deals fall apart entirely, which suggests the issue is not buyer reluctance at the contract stage but rather a mismatch between seller expectations and what buyers are willing to pay at the initial listing price.

A Structural Shortage Underneath the Shift

Even as the market softens at the margins, Rochester’s underlying supply problem remains unresolved. Siwiec estimates the region is short approximately 18,000 units dating back to the Great Recession, a deficit that has never been closed. Unlike Sun Belt markets that attracted large-scale migration during the pandemic and saw builders respond with new construction, Rochester did not experience that population influx.

That absence cuts both ways. “It’s a curse in that we don’t have a growing population,” Siwiec says, “but it’s a blessing in that we don’t have a glut of inventory.” The region avoided the oversupply that is now depressing values in some Sun Belt markets, but it also never built enough to meet local demand.

For investors considering the market, Siwiec frames the opportunity bluntly: anyone willing to navigate local permitting and government approvals to build new housing would be entering a market with significant unmet need. The constraint is not demand; it is the difficulty of securing building permits and working through local government processes.

Reading the Data Carefully

One data point Siwiec is watching closely: a reported 2 percent decline in Rochester property values between February and May of this year, even as Zillow shows a 7.3 percent increase over the trailing twelve months. Both figures can coexist; a market can appreciate over a year while experiencing a short-term seasonal dip.

The question Siwiec is trying to answer is whether the spring decline reflects a delayed seasonal start caused by a harsh winter or the beginning of a longer downward trend. His read is that it was an anomaly. “My gut tells me that the spring market here in Rochester didn’t begin in February as it does every year,” he says. “The spring market probably actually started to kick in in May.”

If Siwiec is right, the 2 percent dip will wash out as late-spring and summer transactions close. If the decline continues through summer, it would mark the first sustained price retreat in the Rochester market since before the pandemic, a signal that the cooling is not just behavioral but structural. Siwiec says he is not sure when buyers will return in previous numbers, citing uncertainty about when interest rates, inflation, and consumer confidence will recover. He expects that the coming year may be a difficult one for the broader U.S. economy, which would keep Rochester’s market in its current holding pattern rather than returning to the frenzy of prior years.

About the Expert: Mark Siwiec is Broker/Owner and CEO of Elysian Homes, serving the Rochester, New York market and surrounding six-county region.

This article is based on information provided by the expert source cited above. It is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or real estate advice. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making any real estate or financial decisions.