Upstate New York Town Retains Affordable Status

Plattsburgh, New York.

While much of the Northeast continues to experience a decline in demand for mortgage loans, this Upstate location saw its overall housing affordability rise in the last three months of 2006 - thanks in part to some steam being let out of the housing bubble.

The cooling of the New York housing market during the last six months of 2006 might have been the bane of real-estate agents, but it did have the silver lining of making Plattsburgh a more affordable place to live and work, according to data collected by local officials.

In the first three months of 2006, the City of Plattsburgh’s overall Cost of Living Index had risen above the national average for the first time in years, due in part to a spike in New York mortgage costs.

The area’s home prices, however, started to stabilize in the second half of the year, helping the city regain its sought-after status as a better-than-average affordable housing location.

According to data for the last three months of 2006, Plattsburgh’s overall Cost of Living Index, at 99.4, was only slightly lower than the national average of 100 and 2.1 percent lower than the first half of the year.

In terms of affordability, Plattsburgh ranked better than New York State counterparts Glens Falls (108.0), Ithaca (111.5) as well as nearby Burlington, Vt. (118.4). It came in just behind Syracuse (99.3).

Like much of the rest of New York state, Clinton County’s housing market stabilized in the last fourth of 2006, with a slowdown in home prices and what was described by the New York State Association of Realtors as a “return to balance between buyers and sellers.”

• Overall, sales of existing single-family homes in Clinton County increased by a modest 1.8 percent between 2004 and 2005 and by 4.2 percent between 2005 and 2006.
• November 2006 sales, however, were down sharply in Clinton County, more than 40 percent below the previous month and nearly 35 percent from the year before.
• The median price paid for single-family homes was just more than $123,000 in the third quarter of 2006, which was virtually unchanged from the third quarter of 2004.

These relatively stable figures contrasted with other counties in New York, which experienced big fluctuations in both the number of homes sold and the prices paid for them as home loan costs became increasingly unaffordable for many.

For example, the number of single-family homes sold between 2004 and 2006 increased by a whopping 127.9 percent in Kings County (New York City) and by similar amounts in Suffolk County (Long Island) while the average prices for those homes jumped by more than 21 percent during that same period.

SOURCE: Plattsburgh Press-Republican