New listings tick upward but housing market still lacks inventory

New listings on the Monroe County real estate market showed a moderate increase in March and the figure was not that far off of pre-pandemic numbers, according to data released Wednesday by the New York State Association of Realtors (NYSAR).

There were 881 new listings last month compared to 834 in March of 2021, a bump of 5.6 percent. That also was just 7 percent fewer than March of 2019.

The problem for would-be homebuyers, however, remains total inventory. In March of 2019, there were 933 homes for sale in Monroe County. A year earlier, there were 1,063 houses on the market. Last month there were only 399 homes for sale, a plunge of 57.2 percent from 2019 and 62.5 percent from 2018.

As a result, closed sales were down 10.6 percent year over year (to 446) while the median sales price spiked 16.7 percent (to $200,095).

The trend was similar in Ontario County, where new listings rose 24.8 percent to 151 but total houses for sale fell by 61.7 percent to 136 compared to March 2019. The median sales price was $200,000, up 8.7 percent year over year.

For the first time in at least four years, Monroe County no longer had the lowest months supply in the state. There was just a 0.5 months supply of homes on the market in Genesee County in March, down from 0.7 a year earlier, while Monroe County actually rose one tick to 0.6. A reading of 6 to 6.5 months is considered a balanced market.

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