Assistance available for senior homeowners

Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito, [D-Rome] recently announced the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal is awarding Oneida County a $600,000 grant through its Office for Small Cities to help elderly residents in rural and suburban communities make home repairs.

“This program will not only provide eligible seniors who are on fixed incomes maintain their homes, but it also will help them make their homes more energy efficient, helping them to reduce their utility costs,” Destito said.

Read more in the Utica Observer-Dispatch

Arts and Crafts style home featured for sale

The home featured in this week's Post-Standard is a historical gem! Originally designed by famed architect Ward Wellington Ward, the house at 168 Robineau Rd. still maintains a number of period details. More more info, read the article in the Post-Standard.

DestinyUSA's Green Parking

Although today's post is not directly related to the CNY Real Estate Market, it's something we thought was pretty interesting. In the home building arena, the next big thing is sustainable construction, or building "green" - that is, building in an environmentally conscious way.

Well the DestinyUSA folks have been preaching that all the development going on off of Hiawatha Blvd. there has the best interests of the environment in mind - and we noticed something new the other day - Green Parking!




Check this out - if you have a hybrid or other eco-friendly car, you can qualify for special up-close parking at the mall now.

NewsChannel 9 has a good story on this and other green efforts at the site. Let's hope this project really goes through and helps our economy now!

CNY Real Estate Update

Town house and condominium prices fell during the second quarter in Central New York, a trend some local Realtors attribute to an oversupply in the suburbs.

The median price of condos and town houses dropped 13.9 percent in the Syracuse metropolitan area, the biggest decline in any of the 60 cities tracked by the National Association of Realtors.

The median price fell to $123,000 in the second quarter, down from $142,900 in the second quarter of 2006, the association reported. The median is the midpoint; half the properties sell for more, half for less.

Read more, from the Post-Standard

Central NY surviving housing slump

The housing market may be taking a pounding across the country but it seems to be a different story here in Central New York.

The Greater Syracuse Association of Realtors says it’s surviving the slump, though prices are down.

Nationally, home sellers can expect to see their properties sit on the market between 8 and 10 weeks on average, here in Onondaga County, on average, homes are being sold in 48 days.

Read more, from WSYR

Western NY homeowners feel property tax bite

Not in Central NY, per se, but our neighbors to the west are having similar problems...

The low cost of housing in the Buffalo Niagara region has a dark side: Homeowners here pay among the highest real estate taxes, as a percentage of home value, in the nation.

Niagara County homeowners’ median annual real estate taxes were 2.91 percent of the median home value of Niagara County homes in 2006, the second-highest percentage in the country, according to the Washington, D.C.- based Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group that analyzed newly released census data. The actual median tax paid in Niagara County was $2,638, ranking 145th in the nation.

Read more, from The Buffalo News