BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Downtown Buffalo's housing market is just as hot as the forecast for this weekend.
"Convenience. Definitely convenience. There's everything right here for me," Kathleen Ponterio said.
Meet one of downtown Buffalo's newest neighbors – 25-year-old marketing assistant Kathleen Ponterio.
"More to do, there's good food, good restaurants. I work down here, I can walk to work. Yeah, I barely drive anymore, so it's really nice," Ponterio said.
Ponterio's place includes a parking spot in a ramp and brand new everything.
According to a new downtown residential market study released by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, Ponterio is joining approximately 1810 people who've moved to downtown Buffalo since 2011. The study included downtown Buffalo's central business district within boundaries that extend to lower Niagara Street, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, and Larkinville.
The two groups most represented are empty nesters and young professionals.
"Young people want to live in the city. And it's too expensive for real estate to buy a home, so they rent," explained Kathleen’s dad, Mike.
The report found while the number of households at the lowest income level in the 14203 zip code remained stable, every other group grew.
Meg Ryan and Andrew Bammel both moved into their apartments in 2013 and 2014. They grew up in Orchard Park.
"I moved to the city in 2014 right out of college. I thought I'd give it a year to see if I like it, and that was four years ago, so I'm loving the city, loving being part of the community and think it's a great place to be," Bammel said.
"When I first moved here, there wasn't as much as there is now for sure, so we've seen..." Ryan said.
"Even the past three, four years since I've been here, we've seen a lot of up-grow," finished Bammel.
The Partnership is projecting that 14-hundred new residential units will go online over the next five years, and that includes 104 at One Seneca Tower by this Thanksgiving.
So, they've listed a lot of positives, but is there anything on the wish lists of downtown Buffalo's Millennials?
“Wegman's is kind of far, and that's where I like to go," Ponterio said.
"I would like a washer and a dryer in my apartment to be honest, but that's pretty much it," Ryan said.