In December 2025, Realtor.com published its 2026 forecast and put Rochester at No. 2 in the country. The forecast called for 5.3 percent sales growth and a 10.3 percent median sale price increase for the year. That story ran on WROC, Monroe County Executive Adam Bello commented on it, and sellers have been quoting it to me ever since.

It is August 2026. So the fair question is whether the forecast is holding, and whether it justifies asking more than your neighbor got.

Here is what you will get in this post: what the ranking actually said and did not say, what the most recent verified numbers show for Monroe County versus the city of Rochester, why the aggregator sites you are reading contradict each other by a factor of four, and how I would set a price on a house in Henrietta or Pittsford right now given all of that. I will also tell you plainly which numbers I could not find, because that matters as much as the ones I could.

What the No. 2 ranking actually said

The Realtor.com 2026 housing forecast for Rochester, published December 19, 2025, contained these figures:

• Rochester ranked No. 2 among top U.S. housing markets for 2026
• Forecast 5.3 percent growth in home sales for the year
• Forecast 10.3 percent increase in median sale price for the year
• Median list price of $256,900, against a national median around $415,000
• New construction reported as only 6.8 percent of listings

Two things about that list. First, it is a forecast, not a result. It was published before a single 2026 closing happened. Second, the number that got the least attention is the one that explains the ranking: new construction at 6.8 percent of listings. Rochester ranked high partly because it is affordable relative to the national median and partly because almost nothing new is being built here. Affordability plus thin supply is what the model rewarded.

That is a different claim than "your house is worth 10.3 percent more than last year." Nobody promised that about your house.

The geography trap, and it is a big one

Before any number means anything, you have to know which Rochester it describes. Almost every figure that ranks well in search describes the city of Rochester. If you are selling in Pittsford, Brighton, Mendon or Honeoye Falls, those figures are not about you.

Look at the spread:

The county median sale price and the lower city figure are more than $100,000 apart. Pittsford, Brighton, Mendon and Honeoye Falls sit above the county median, not near the city number. So when a seller in Mendon shows me a screenshot saying Rochester is at $230,000 and asks if that is bad news, the answer is that the screenshot is not describing their market at all.

The $308,500 Monroe County median from May 2026 was reported as another new high. That is the most defensible price number I have, and it comes from association data rather than an aggregator estimate.

The contradiction sitting in plain sight

Here is why you keep seeing "cooling" headlines next to "record price" headlines. Two sites published July 2026 numbers for the same city in the same month and do not agree on anything:

One says sales rose roughly 79 percent. The other says sales fell. Days on market differ by four times over. And look at the Houzeo pair: 120.57 percent of asking price alongside 51 median days on market. A market that clears at 20.6 percent over ask does not also take seven weeks to sell a house. Those two figures cannot both be true of the same market. I treat the 120.57 percent as an artifact of the calculation, not a market fact.

Worth knowing: that Houzeo page is bylined by a broker based in Bayside, Queens, and the page itself is labeled as carrying an AI-powered forecast. It is not a Rochester desk product.

So the contradiction is the story. The market is not sending mixed signals. The aggregators are.

What genuinely held up

Strip out the noise and here is what the verified data supports:

• Prices kept climbing. Monroe County median sale price hit a record $308,500 in May 2026 per NYSAR. Monroe County home values were up 4.1 percent year over year on Zillow's ZHVI, updated April 30, 2026.
• Supply stayed extremely thin. Months of supply for the city ran 0.33 in July 2026. A balanced market is conventionally described as five to six months. Zillow had county homes going pending in about 8 days as of its April 30, 2026 update.
• Rates went nowhere. Freddie Mac's survey for the week ending August 13, 2026 put the 30-year fixed at 6.67 percent, down from 6.69 percent the prior week, against 6.58 percent a year earlier. The 15-year was 5.96 percent versus 5.71 percent a year ago. That 6.67 reading ended five straight weekly increases. Freddie Mac's chief economist Sam Khater described rates as relatively stable, with affordability improved versus a year ago and applications up.

Flat rates, record county prices, and supply under one month. That is not a cooling market. It is a frozen one where prices keep grinding up because there is almost nothing to buy.

What did not hold up, or cannot be checked

I would rather lose an argument than pad a post with numbers I cannot stand behind. So:

• The 10.3 percent price increase forecast has not been confirmed by any full-year result, because the year is not over. The county value gain I can verify is 4.1 percent year over year as of April 30, 2026. That is well short of 10.3 percent. It may or may not close the gap.
• I have no town-level data for Henrietta, West Henrietta, Pittsford, Brighton, Mendon, Rush or Honeoye Falls. No median price, no days on market, no inventory, for any period in 2026. Nor for the nearby Finger Lakes towns. Anyone quoting you a Pittsford median from a national website is quoting an estimate, not a closing record.
• The newest primary county data is May 2026. The newest closed-sales data anywhere is July 2026. There is no August 2026 sales data, because August is not over.
• One reported Rochester Business Journal sidebar headline read that housing inventory was on the rise in Monroe County while prices were also rising. I could not pin down its reporting period. If county inventory is genuinely growing, it cuts against the frozen-supply framing, and I would want to see that release before pricing aggressively.

How I would price your house against this

The Rochester market ranking is a useful marketing fact. It is not a pricing input. Here is the order I work in.

Start with closed comparable sales in your own town, ideally your own school district and street pattern, within the last 90 days. Not county averages. Not city medians. Actual closings on houses a buyer would consider instead of yours. In Henrietta that might mean a specific subdivision and build era. In Pittsford it can mean a single road.

Then adjust for condition honestly. I spent years buying, renovating and reselling houses before I got licensed, so I will tell you what a buyer's inspector is going to flag: the 1978 panel, the flat roof over the addition, the crawl space. Thin supply forgives a lot. It does not forgive a price that ignores $30,000 of deferred work when the appraiser shows up.

Then apply the market condition, which right now is short supply and flat rates. Both support pricing at the top of your comparable range. Neither supports pricing above it. Sale-to-list figures like 120.57 percent are not a permission slip. Homes priced past their comparables in this market still sit, and the ones that sit get offers below where they would have started.

And be clear-eyed about the ranking itself. It was published in December 2025. Buyers read it too, which helps your showing traffic. It says nothing about your roof.

If you want to know what your specific street has actually closed at this year, and what a buyer will pay for your house in its current condition, I will pull the comparables and walk you through them line by line, including the ones that argue against a higher price.

Book a time with me to review your numbers.

Khem Kadariya

About this data

The figures in this post were compiled from publicly available sources including Houzeo, Movoto, Redfin, RochesterFirst and Zillow, along with other public market data. Real estate numbers change quickly, and these were accurate as of August 2026. For current figures on a specific home, street, or town, ask me directly rather than relying on a published average.