The "Buyers Have The Upper Hand Now" Story Doesn't Hold Up Here

You've probably heard it from a friend, a coworker, or a headline somewhere: the market has flipped, buyers are back in charge, sellers finally have to be reasonable. It's a comfortable story if you're about to make an offer. It just isn't the one the sales in greater Rochester tell.

Here's what's actually true. Over the twelve weeks ending September 20, 2026, the typical home across the territory sold for 112.5% of its asking price. Not close to asking. Above it.

That wasn't a fluke sale or two. Of the 1,575 homes that closed in that window, 78.2% went for more than the seller was asking. That's four out of every five closings landing above list.

To be fair to the "buyers have leverage" crowd, there's a real thread of truth buried in there. A year earlier, over the same twelve-week stretch, the territory's sale-to-list figure was 113.6%. It's eased since then, just not into buyer territory. It moved from extremely seller-favorable to still-quite-seller-favorable.

Price tells the same story from a different angle. The median sale price across the 1,575 closings was $300,000. A year earlier, over the same twelve weeks, it was $280,000.

Look closer and the picture gets more interesting than "sellers win everywhere." In Spencerport, the median sale price climbed about 17% year over year. The average sale-to-list ratio there moved the other way. A year ago it ran 115%, and this period it ran 107%. Homes are worth more, but sellers are giving up more ground to close the deal.

Churchville shows a similar pattern. The median sale price there rose about 10% year over year. Separately, the average sale-to-list ratio slid about 8 percentage points from where it stood a year earlier. Rising value and shrinking negotiating room, happening in the same market at the same time.

And the pace of the market isn't uniform either, which is the real complication in the "market has flipped" story. In Hilton, the median time to a pending sale ran about 36 days. In Churchville, over the same twelve weeks, the same measure ran about 2 days. Both are inside the same buy box. One is moving at a crawl by comparison, the other is nearly instant.

So what does a Saturday actually look like right now? If you're selling in a market like Churchville, you're probably fielding competing offers within days, and you're likely still coming out ahead of your asking price even if you're conceding a little more than you would have a year ago. If you're buying in a slower corner like Hilton, you have more room to think, more room to negotiate, and less competition standing behind you at the open house.

That's the honest read: this isn't a buyer's market. It's a market where sellers still hold most of the cards overall, but where the size of that advantage now depends heavily on which street you're standing on. A buyer who assumes the whole territory has softened the way the headlines suggest is going to be surprised at the first offer deadline they run into.

What would change this read is the territory's sale-to-list figure itself. It moved a little over the past year. Whether it keeps moving the same direction next period is the number worth watching before anyone declares the market flipped.

If you're wondering what any of this means for your own house, that's a more specific question than a territory-wide number can answer. I'm happy to put together a straightforward read on what your home would likely sell for today, no obligation attached.

Figures above come from MLS sold data, reviewed against Zillow as a verification check before publication.

Scott