In downtown Syracuse, old building are transforming into luxury apartments are and modern building with amenities are being constructed.
Ocesa Keaton, a 42-year-old Syracuse native, has been trying to buy a home with her partner for over 6 months with no success. They’ve put in strong offers on three homes, only to have other buyers swoop in at the last second willing to go even higher over asking price.
“On paper we are a model prospect for home ownership because we have good stable jobs,” said Keaton. “From a wage standpoint, we make higher than the medium income of the average Syracuse resident, but we’re still facing difficulty.”
Now the couple is down to crunch time.
“We thought that we were getting an early start,” said Keaton. “But here we are facing the possibility of, do we renew our lease or do we have to go month to month?”
If Keaton rents for another year, housing price trends in Syracuse suggest the market may get even tougher.
In the last year, the price of homes in Syracuse rose almost 5%, and listings were snapped up by buyers after an average of just 7 days on the market. Inventory has shrunk from 2,988 listings in August 2016 to 503 last month, a whopping 83% drop.
This affordability crisis in Syracuse is in large part spurred by Micron’s investment, the largest in New York State history. The company estimates it will bring 9,000 new high-paying jobs over the next 20 years, and it promises to create 40,000 more jobs through construction and other indirect jobs.
The chip plant in Onondaga County could be a recipe for wealth, but only if Syracuse can crack the code for creating more residential construction.
Lawmakers are trying to balance the opportunity for economic growth with growing concerns from residents like Keaton about affordability and environmental impact.
“This is central New York. We’ve been known for affordable living,” said Onondaga County Legislator Elaine Denton. “We do not want to lose that.”
The spike in demand for housing in the region marks a turning point for the rust belt city, which saw population decline for 70 years. Once a booming urban landscape known for salt manufacturing, Franklin Automobiles, Smith-Corona typewriters, Carrier air conditioners and its contributions to General Electric, the city eventually lost its industries to factories overseas and sank into an economic slump.
But for residents, the upside of the weak economy was that homes in the area were relatively affordable. Homes in the Syracuse area have sold at about half the price of the national average for the last 20 years. In 2022, Syracuse workers on average only made about 13 cents less an hour than workers nationally, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This moment of rising real estate cost comes at a time when housing affordability is a sensitive subject for people across the country. The national average for 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is 6.35%, according to Bankrate, soaring above pandemic lows that reached below 3%. The labor market is also not at its strongest. Americans with steady jobs are generally not getting fired, but people looking for jobs are struggling to find them. The weak job growth leaves many workers – employed or not – wary of their future.
As a result, it’s not surprising that people can’t find properties in their budget, and projects like Micron, which seem to promise economic relief, could further delay dreams of homeownership.
Some Syracusans feel that the risk of the plant isn’t something residents are ready to take on. Bonita Siegel is the president of Neighbors For A Better Micron, a group bringing a lawsuit against the chip manufacturer. In addition to housing, the group is concerned about the environment and transportation system.
“I’ve been thinking about the bargain our region is being asked to make – so many promises, but no real accountability for fulfilling them,” Seigel said in an opinion piece for syracuse.com.
Syracuse residents struggling to embrace the chip plant are not the first to have these types of hesitations. In 2018 a similar situation occurred when cities bid on getting a new Amazon headquarters. While politicians threw tax incentives at Bezos’ company, private citizens protested, saying that it would cause gentrification and a housing shortage. This backlash succeeded in halting development for the facility in Queens’ Long Island City. But the residents of some other cities didn’t get their way.
Despite community protest, heavy machinery rolled into Inglewood in 2016 to build a new sports stadium. The Los Angeles County city was traditionally a lower income area, but after the announcement of the Rams NFL team relocating to the neighborhood, prices skyrocketed. From 2017 to 2024, home values rose over $200,000, even when adjusted for inflation.
The projects in these three cities scattered across the country were all propelled by the support of lawmakers who touted the benefits of the businesses. But many community members like Seigel – the people who the developments would theoretically help – worry about how they will actually affect residents, even if they don’t oppose those developments in principle.
Local politicians in Syracuse plan to tackle affordability concerns by aiding the lowest income people in the county. Denton is creating initiatives in the county legislature to support Home HeadQuarters, a non-profit that builds and rehabilitates homes and provides qualifying first time home buyers $5,000 to put towards a down payment or closing costs.
These programs are increasing dramatically in popularity. Sarah Bruce, the Executive Director for Syracuse Habitat for Humanity says the affordable housing they build has four times as many applicants as it did four years ago and that they now have a waitlist with 500 people on it.
And yet, while there is clearly a large list of people in need of the housing these programs provide, for people like Keaton they aren’t a help. She said she originally thought she would qualify to buy one of the homes for first time homebuyers, but now that she’s been forced into the regular market, she’s found that there’s no real place in the market for her.
“It’s extremely disappointing and frustrating,” she said.
There simply isn’t enough housing supply, affordable or not, to meet demand. Even as the region’s population has grown over the past two decades, the number of permits for new homes has fallen.. In 2024 the U.S. Census Bureau reported that Onondaga County issued 633 permits for private housing – that’s about half as many as they issued in the 1990s and 2000s, before the housing market crashed.
One major setback is approval for new residential construction by local municipalities, which are often wary of increasing density. While the City of Syracuse has been liberal with accepting new housing plans, many of the other towns and villages within Onondaga County have been less enthusiastic.
Ben Sio, President of the CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity, said the only way to solve this problem is to get people on board with increasing the housing stock.
“The best bang for our buck is investing in density,” Sio said. “Apartments, condos and town houses.”
He said he’s taking the steps to bring builders to Syracuse who could do just that.
While some homebuyers in Syracuse may feel deterred by the state of the housing market, Keaton and her partner aren’t letting it push them away from the city they love.
“I think we’re both approaching this with a bit of resiliency,” said Keaton. “We just keep going back out there, keep looking, keep putting in bids with the belief that it’ll happen soon.”
