Low inventory and high prices still plague potential homebuyers throughout Lackawanna and Luzerne counties in 2025, real estate experts said.
Pat Rogan, owner of the Olyphant-based Hub Real Estate Group, noted the average listing price for a single-family home in the Greater Scranton Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service increased from roughly $235,000 to $269,000 throughout the past year and he expects the trend to continue.
“They’re going to continue to go up,” he said. “Part of it is inflation and part of it is the lack of inventory. Overall, inventory is still very, very low. As far as (2025) goes, I expect it to kind of be more of the same. It’s crazy how this market has been since COVID. When COVID hit, people thought it would be a short-term boom, but prices are higher now than they were in 2020.”
On a broader scale, the median sale price for an existing home in the U.S. hit a record-high $426,900 in June 2024, according to the National Association of Realtors. And, as of November, home prices in Pennsylvania were up 11.2% over last year, selling for a median price of $298,400, per Redfin, a firm which provides residential real estate brokerage and mortgage origination services.
As of Monday, there were 77 single-family homes for sale in the city of Scranton, Rogan said. Additionally, the actual number of homes available in the middle of the market is probably more like 45 to 50, he said.
And while the number fell into the 60s at one point, Rogan added there would be about 150 to 200 homes available in a balanced market.
“I remember when it broke below 100 – that was earth-shattering,” Rogan said. “It’s still tough for homebuyers right now but there are deals to be had. It’s just a little bit harder of a market to navigate right now. The lower-to-middle price point is the more competitive part of the market now because there are so many buyers. First-time homebuyers are having the hardest time right now. It’s definitely still a seller’s market, but not to the extent it was in early 2024.”
A continued influx of buyers from out of state has added to the inventory issue.
“There are still a ton of people moving here from bigger cities for various reasons — crime, taxes and affordability are probably the biggest three,” Rogan said. “There was always some migration from those bigger cities but COVID really sped it up. Your dollar goes a lot further here than it does in these bigger cities.”
Also, many people who purchased homes or refinanced their existing one at 3% to 4.5% have been staying put, Rogan said.
“Normally, some of them may have considered moving through upsizing or downsizing,” he said. “Right now, people aren’t moving out of those homes unless they really have to.”
Rogan stressed more new homes need to be built locally but absorbent costs are keeping people from moving in that direction and leading them to purchase from the current stock.
“Even with the prices as high as they’ve gotten, new construction is still significantly more (expensive) than buying existing or buying existing and remodeling it,” he said. “Financially, new construction still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in our area and until it does this problem is going to continue to persist.”
David Hourigan
David Hourigan, an associate broker/manager for Classic Properties, who is based in Mountain Top, said inventory also remains low in Luzerne County, but he expects more homes to become available as the year progresses.
“There are a number of buyers at all price levels waiting for the inventory to loosen up a little bit and make their moves,” he said. “I believe people are coming to accept the fact that the interest rates are not going to come down significantly — 2.5% to 4% is not anywhere in the future. I think people will surrender waiting because as they’re waiting, house prices are still going up and rates aren’t coming down. And some people have a necessity to move, whether it’s job related, or the house is way too big for their needs so they have to downsize. I think the inventory will loosen up because of it.”
However, home prices remain much higher than they were for about a seven-year stretch, Hourigan added.
“We’re way up from where we were,” he said. “We were at a market between 2011 and 2018 where prices absolutely didn’t change. Average sale prices bounced back and forth from year to year — $15,000 up or down — but they stayed in the same bracket. Finally, at the end of 2018 and going into 2019, prices started to adjust to follow the new construction and then COVID changed the world. Houses began selling quickly, and prices went up and they stayed up.”