Nationally, new home sales hit an all time low in 2011 and right here in the Capital Region, the trend is the same.
"Spec houses are not happening now at all. Financing is very difficult," says Lew Dubuque, with the New York State Builders Association.
The numbers from the Capital Region Multiple Listing Service show 1,199 new homes were sold in the year 2000. That number fell to 932 in 2008 and in 2011 it went down to just 620 new homes sold. That's nearly 100 less than in 2010.
But while single-family new home sales are down, Dubuque says there's a boom in brand new multi-family homes.
He says apartments, condos and townhouses are selling through the roof.
"What we've seen in the Capital Region is a real transformation of the housing market," he says. "Multi-family is the way the market is moving."
Dubuque tells us Albany county alone saw a 1,200 percent increase in those types of sales. And with Global Foundries bringing in hundreds of jobs, Saratoga County's numbers jumped 700 percent.
"Saratoga County makes up more than half single family and multi family home sales alone," Dubuque says.
