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Utica, New York wants you.Badly.The Mohawk Valley city has quietly become one of the most affordable places to buy a home anywhere in the state, with median values ranging from roughly $87,000 to $157,000 depending on the neighborhood, according to multiple market trackers.
Rents start as low as $900 a month.Overall cost of living runs about 28 to 33 percent below the New York state average.For a New Yorker priced out of literally everything, that sounds like a fantasy.
So why does the population keep shrinking?The math is almost cartoonishly lopsided.The average home in Utica — four hours north of New York City — now runs $213,412, according to Zillow data, up nearly 9 percent in the past year.
That’s still a fraction of the roughly $370,000 national average home value. Median household income sits around $52,000, well below the state median, and the median individual income in Utica was just $30,785 in 2024.A five-bedroom property 707 Spring St W has listed for only $89,900.And a three-bedroom home is listed for $99,900.
On the pricier end for the area, a five-bedroom, 2,500 square feet property at 1527 Mohawk St is on the market for $299,900.And people keep moving out anyway.
Utica is currently losing population at a rate of about 0.74 percent a year, and has shrunk more than 4 percent since the 2020 census. A recent analysis of statewide migration found Utica among the upstate municipalities outside New York City that lost the most residents, down roughly 1,500 people.“It’s the cheapest house you’ll ever buy and also the hardest sell to your kids,” one longtime Mohawk Valley real estate agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, describing the pitch to prospective buyers weighing Utica against the Southern Tier or the Capital Region. “Price isn’t the problem.Everything else is the problem.”The roots of the exodus go back decades.
Utica was hit hard by Rust Belt deindustrialization, with major employers like General Electr...