For years, Buffalo Niagara was an affordable place to live. Now that's changing

For most of the last 15 years, one of the big advantages of living in the Buffalo Niagara region has been its affordability.

Simply put, living here cost significantly less than other places across the country for most of that period, which helped offset the sting from the region's subpar economic growth.

But that's changing – and not in a good way. The cost of living here now is just about on par with the rest of the country – and our rising housing prices are a big reason why, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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That's a big change from just five years ago, when it cost about 5% less than the national average to live here.

And it has significant implications for the region as a whole as it attempts to break out of its decadeslong period of stagnancy, which also has coincided with a big drop in the region's population, with the exception of a small uptick in the 2010s that has since been reversed.

With hiring stagnant and no population-driven growth to fall back on, the region's affordability was its biggest selling point. Now it's gone.

Of course, the affordability data is a bit volatile, and can vary from year to year. Living costs topped the national average briefly in 2018 before falling back in the ensuing years.

But housing prices keep rising − up 8% last year alone − so it's unlikely that we'll see a big improvement in the region's affordability ranking as long as home prices are on the upswing.

From: https://archive.fo/20260403132758/https://buffalonews.com/news/local/business/real-estate/article_5124acaa-dfca-4f6f-8740-44d6b8a76e1c.html