The message from the Greater Binghamton Association of Realtors at our Chamber of Commerce Economic Forecast with event was simple: We need more housing — now.
The Greater Binghamton housing market is increasingly tightening. According to GBAR’s data, there was on average 1,600 homes for sale at any given point ten years ago. Today, less than 300 are on the market.
New York’s housing crisis is no longer just a quality-of-life issue. It is an economic competitiveness issue. Across the state, communities are struggling to retain workers, attract new employers, and stabilize neighborhoods because the supply of housing simply is not keeping pace with demand.
Across both Greater Binghamton and New York State, housing and job growth must move forward together, or we will continue to lose people, investment, and opportunity. If you travel along the I-90 Thruway, you see one thing clearly: new housing construction supporting economic growth.
In energy policy, we’ve advocated for an “all-of-the-above” strategy, because no single source can meet growing power demand. Housing deserves that same mindset. For too long, we have debated housing needs in silos: renters versus homeowners, market-rate versus affordable, student housing versus workforce housing. Just as an energy grid collapses when too much pressure is placed on one source, a community falters when it relies on only one type of housing to serve a wide spectrum of needs.
The health of a housing market is one of the clearest benchmarks of the vibrancy of an economy. Housing has always been tied to job creation and growth. Business seeks talent. Talent seeks housing.
Yet here in Broome County, a 2024 Housing Needs Assessment showed more than 70% of our housing stock is over 50 years old. Rental vacancies have dropped below what’s needed for a healthy market, hovering between 3% and 5%.
One of Greater Binghamton’s and the Southern Tier’s greatest assets is our housing affordability – ranked by Newmark Global Strategies as the 5th most affordable in the United States. While housing affordability is a competitive advantage, it is not guaranteed. Home values have increased more than 40% since 2019, but that is a sign that new construction has failed to keep pace with demand.
We must embrace an “all-in” housing strategy. A first step is encouraging local municipalities to secure New York’s “Pro-Housing” designation to access state resources. There must additionally be support for organizations like the Broome County Land Bank as it seeks to spur reinvestment and rehabilitation of existing buildings for workforce and affordable housing.
We also must expand the “missing middle” and newly built high-value duplexes, townhomes, condominiums, and small-lot single-family homes that developers can deliver more efficiently. And there must be a serious plan to grow transitional and supportive housing as a first step toward breaking the cycle of homelessness and poverty.
We must also demand more from absent “institutional” developers that purchase large swaths of properties in our urban core with no plan to maintain them. Purchasing a building should eliminate blight, not perpetuate it. Zoning reform would allow for a flexible and broader mix of housing types. Swifter, stricter code enforcement for negligent owners is a must.
And we cannot be shy about using tools like PILOT programs strategically — not as giveaways, but as partnerships that require measurable public benefit in return, including timely completion of construction and commitments to community reinvestment.
Greater Binghamton is on the precipice of great economic momentum through continued investment by our “eds and meds”: Binghamton University, UHS, and Guthrie. We’re also seeing significant expansion of our manufacturing sector, including the growth of BAE Systems, Toyota Raymond, and CMP-AMS in the City of Binghamton. And we remain laser focused on building out new development sites to support growth, including the redevelopment of the Huron Campus and the planning for development of the Broome Technology Park.
A catalyst for this momentum is embracing “and,” not “or,” when it comes to housing. We leave too much on the table without alignment across government, nonprofit partners, the private sector, and communities on an all-in strategy.
The opportunity is here. We simply need the courage — and the collaboration — to seize it.