Buffalo Area Home Price Rise Far Outpaces Inflation

This is even more impressive when you take into account the impact of inflation.

Home prices in the region have jumped 19.6% since the start of 2019, even accounting for the sharp rise in consumer prices during the period. That’s pretty close to the 21.7% increase in real home prices nationwide, according to a new report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The report shows that most of the growth in real house prices took place between 2019 and 2022, and has slowed to only slightly above inflation over the past two years.

But that initial growth spurt was powerful, with inflation-adjusted prices rising faster in the Buffalo Niagara region than nationwide in every year from 2019 to 2021. Prices in the U.S. rose faster in two of the past three years, the study found.

Home prices are rising much faster than inflation, further squeezing buyers’ budgets and making homeownership less affordable. And that’s not even counting the impact of rising mortgage rates, which have nearly doubled during this period and added hundreds of dollars to the average buyer’s monthly mortgage payment.