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Local towns are in a similar boat when it comes to the housing market.
For many, the supply of available homes is low, and yet the demand for buying or building new ones remains high. This in turn causes a lot of the prices to dramatically increase and leads to people paying more for homes in 2023 than they might have in previous years.
Locally, this can be seen in towns such as Clymer, Harmony, North Harmony, Sherman, Mina and French Creek.
"The town of Clymer currently has zero homes for sale according to Zillow," Clymer Town Supervisor Brian Willink said. "I also know that recent vacant land and home prices that have sold have been high compared to historical pricing. So, I guess in summary, demand and pricing is high with very low availability."
Tera Darts, the assessor for the town of Harmony, said the town has plateaued in sales but prices remain high. She said this is a reflection of what is currently happening across Chautauqua County.
"People are paying twice the amount that the house is valued for," Darts said. "There is not a lot of supply in the town, but there's not a lot of supply in towns across Chautauqua County. People are paying more than they typically would for a house because of less supply."
According to Zillow, the average home value in Chautauqua County is $161,460, up 2.3% over the past year.
In North Harmony, while the demand has slowed down some, the story remains the same.
"People are still paying more than what homes are valued at," town assessor Anne Golley said.
Heather Young-Deyell, assessor for the towns of Sherman, Mina and French Creek, said what is being seen in local towns is following a nationwide trend. The three towns have a coordinated assessment program, and the cap-wide reassessment average saw an increase of 20 to 30% based on the market.
"The average sale is much higher than the assessed value," Young-Deyell said. "The last assessment project we did was in 2020, and after the three-year delay, there was a substantial increase, which is unheard of."
Since 2019, the sale prices of homes in French Creek have ranged from $45,000 to $449,000; in Mina, sales have ranged from $17,000 to $650,000; and in Sherman, prices have ranged from $20,000 to $485,000 during the same time period.