In this month’s local business spotlight, I sat down with Sarah Mitchell, a real estate broker with 15 years of experience in our community. Sarah has guided hundreds of families through the home buying and selling process, weathering market ups and downs while maintaining one of the highest client satisfaction ratings in the region.
Our conversation explored the realities of today’s housing market, the challenges facing first-time buyers, and what Sarah believes policymakers are missing in the housing affordability debate.
On the Current State of Our Local Housing Market
Jason: Sarah, thanks for making time to chat. Let’s start with the basics – how would you describe our current local housing market to someone trying to understand it?
Sarah: Thanks for having me, Jason. I’d describe our market as a tale of two cities right now. On one hand, we have incredible demand – people want to live here, they love our community. On the other hand, we’re seeing unprecedented challenges with inventory and affordability.
The reality that doesn’t make headlines is that we have about 40% less inventory than we did five years ago. That’s not just a statistic – that’s families staying in homes they’ve outgrown because they can’t find or afford their next step. It’s retirees who want to downsize but can’t find suitable options. The ripple effects touch everyone.
Jason: What’s driving that inventory shortage from your perspective?
Sarah: It’s multi-faceted. We have existing homeowners locked into incredibly low interest rates who don’t want to sell and take on a new mortgage at today’s rates. We have municipalities with restrictive zoning that makes it difficult to build diverse housing types. And we have construction costs that have risen dramatically, making it harder for developers to build affordable new units.
But I think the most underreported factor is the slowdown in building that happened after 2008. We’re still feeling those effects – we simply haven’t built enough homes for over a decade, and that deficit compounds every year.
The Reality for First-Time Buyers
Jason: You work with a lot of first-time buyers. What’s their reality like right now?
Sarah: It’s tough – probably the toughest market for first-time buyers I’ve seen in my career. The traditional path of buying a starter home has almost disappeared in certain price points.
First-time buyers today need to be incredibly prepared. They’re typically making 5-7 offers before securing a home. They’re compromising on location or features in ways previous generations didn’t have to. And they’re often getting financial help from family – about 40% of my first-time buyers under 35 are getting some form of family assistance with their down payment.
But I don’t want to paint it as hopeless. People are still finding homes, but the process requires more patience, flexibility, and financial preparation than ever before.
Jason: What advice are you giving first-time buyers in this environment?
Sarah: Three things consistently: First, start the pre-approval process early and understand exactly what you can afford. Second, be open to neighborhoods you might not have initially considered – some of our traditionally overlooked areas are seeing great community development. And third, don’t waive inspections just to win a bidding war – I’ve seen that lead to major regrets.
I also encourage people to look at condos and townhomes as entry points. The “forever home” is rarely the first home anyway, so focusing on getting into the market sometimes means adjusting expectations.
What Policymakers Are Missing
Jason: You interface with local housing policies regularly. What do you think policymakers are missing?
Sarah: [laughs] How much time do you have?
The biggest disconnect I see is between zoning policies and housing goals. We have municipalities that publicly commit to affordable housing while maintaining zoning that makes it nearly impossible to build multi-family units or smaller homes on smaller lots.
I also think we focus too much on subsidizing demand rather than increasing supply. First-time homebuyer tax credits are popular politically, but without addressing supply, they just drive prices higher.
What we need is a serious conversation about increasing density in appropriate areas, streamlining the permitting process for builders, and incentivizing the construction of “missing middle” housing – duplexes, townhomes, and small multi-family buildings.
Jason: Have you seen any communities get this right?
Sarah: Yes, and that gives me hope. Rochester has made excellent progress by allowing accessory dwelling units by right and reducing minimum lot sizes in certain neighborhoods. They’ve seen about 15% more housing starts year over year, with much of that in the middle price ranges.
Elmwood has created incentives for redeveloping outdated commercial spaces into mixed-use developments. I took buyers through a converted old department store last week that now has retail on the ground floor and 40 condos above it – six of which are priced below market rate. That kind of creative approach is what we need more of.
Final Thoughts
Jason: Before we wrap up, what’s one thing you wish every community member understood about housing in our area?
Sarah: That housing isn’t just about real estate – it’s the foundation of community health. When housing is unaffordable, we lose economic diversity. We lose teachers, first responders, and service workers who can’t afford to live where they work. We see increased commute times, traffic, and environmental impacts. We see kids changing schools when families have to move frequently.
I wish people understood that when they oppose new housing developments or multi-family buildings, there are real human costs to that decision that go beyond property values. The family that can’t find housing here doesn’t disappear – they just move somewhere else, often with significant hardship.
I believe we can create thoughtful development that preserves neighborhood character while evolving to meet our community’s needs. But that requires us all to see housing as infrastructure, not just as an investment or a commodity.
Sarah Mitchell is the broker-owner of Mitchell & Associates Realty. She serves on the county’s Housing Advisory Committee and can be reached through her website at mitchellrealty.com.
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