Insights
Market reports, forecast data, industry insights, and more from iEmergent.
While Zillow named Buffalo, New York, as one of the most active real estate markets of the year, Buffalo-Cheektowaga is one of the handful of metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the United States where the population is declining. Contracting slowly over the past several decades, Buffalo’s metro area consists of 1.2 million people across 500,000 households and has an overall homeownership rate of 66.2%.
Using our proprietary forecasting model alongside demographic data, loan origination records, and property listings, we are able to uncover significant mortgage growth opportunities even in shrinking markets like Buffalo. But to capitalize on these opportunities, lenders may need to adjust their financing strategies to accommodate diverse market segments, including first-time buyers, first-generation buyers, and people of color, some of whom may not even realize they’re prepared for homeownership.
What’s ahead for homeownership and lending in Buffalo, and what can you do to target the right opportunities? Read on to find out.
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Recognizing the complexities of a U.S. mortgage market that contains 387 MSAs and more than 84,000 census tracts, we forecast opportunities at the census-tract level, where lenders can use data to make localized decisions with greater precision. Since 2010, iEmergent’s forecast has outperformed most models designed to predict U.S. mortgage originations, maintaining an accuracy rate of more than 90%.
In Buffalo, our 2025 projections show 13,209 combined purchase and refinance loans, amounting to $3.34 billion in total volume with an average loan size of $252,874.
When we visualize this forecast by census tract, you can see most lending happens outside of Buffalo’s urban core:
In 2024, the lender with the most loans in the Buffalo MSA was locally headquartered M&T Bank. As in many markets, big national independent mortgage bankers (IMBs) such as UWM and Rocket took other top spots.
From 2023 to 2026, total dollar volume for purchase and refinance originations in Buffalo is forecast to grow $739 million, a 26.2% increase. Much of the increase can be attributed to higher home prices (and therefore higher loan amounts), as loan units are only expected to grow 4.3% in the same time period.
This growth, however, is forecast to slow. From 2025 to 2030, the Buffalo market is expected to grow just slightly faster than the U.S. as a whole.
iEmergent’s Mortgage Velocity Index (MVI) compares a market’s rate of growth in loans over the next five years to the growth rate of the overall U.S. market. An MVI of 1 means a market is growing on pace with national market growth, and Buffalo has a 1.17 MVI.
Buffalo’s market growth outpaces cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, but it trails behind Denver, Washington, D.C., New York City, and Las Vegas:
Because the market’s population is staying stagnant or shrinking, growth opportunity in Buffalo comes from finding new homeowners already in the market, including:
Finding and serving these borrowers, some of whom may not know they’re homeownership-ready, requires community engagement, targeted outreach and education, and innovative lending programs.
While Buffalo doesn’t have the most diverse population, more than a quarter of the population are minorities, and the homeownership gap remains high.
The non-Hispanic white homeownership rate is around double that of Black and Hispanic households, exceeding those minority segments by more than 25 percentage points.
Non-Hispanic white households make up 73% of households in the Buffalo market but accounted for 84.4% of loans in 2024. While the penetration rate for Asian, Black, and Hispanic borrowers has improved in the last few years, it still trails behind population percentages by double digits.
Our data visualization shows that minority households are highly concentrated in central Buffalo, with low populations in surrounding areas:
Loan dollars to minority borrowers reach outside of Buffalo’s urban area but are still concentrated in the center:
Only 15% of census tracts in Buffalo are majority Black or Hispanic tracts, much lower than the national average of 24.1%. But more than 33% of tracts are low-to-moderate income (LMI) census tracts where the median family income is below 80% of the area median income. That’s higher than the national average of 28.8%.
Lending to LMI borrowers accounts for about 25% of loan dollars and 35% of loan count in the market. How can lenders pinpoint these borrowers and help them become homeowners?
Not all LMI borrowers live in LMI census tracts. Our data visualization shows loans to LMI borrowers are spread throughout the market. Many are outside of LMI census tracts but are heavily concentrated in the center of Buffalo:
With population declining in Buffalo, lenders have the opportunity to turn LMI borrowers into homeowners with people-based special purpose credit programs (SPCPs) and other programs that reduce financial barriers for this large population segment.
Buffalo is a market where lenders may have to seek out growth opportunities and use targeted data, community engagement, and new products to grow volume. Finding LMI and diverse borrowers who are homeownership ready is the key to success in a market like this.
iEmergent’s data and tools help lenders do this by:
With the correct, forward-looking data and strategic outreach, lenders have the opportunity to generate sustainable growth while addressing persistent homeownership disparities.