East End’s Middle Market Steals Spotlight In Q2

Long Island’s East End may be known for its trophy estates, but it was the middle market that drove sales in the region last quarter.

While activity in the Hamptons and the North Fork ticked down in the second quarter, homes above the market’s entry level but short of its upper echelons accounted for the largest share of transactions, according to data by Miller Samuel and Streetmatrix.

That shift in deal concentration represents a departure from previous quarters, when properties in the highest price tranches dominated sales.

“In both of these markets, the segment above $1 million but below the very top of the market is where the action is,” said report author Jonathan Miller. “That’s what’s really churning the market.”

In the Hamptons, deals between $1 million and $5 million accounted for nearly 68 percent of the 1,200 transactions closed last quarter. That segment of the market stole the spotlight from sales above $5 million, which hit a record share in the first quarter of 2026, accounting for 20 percent of deals. In the previous period, that share dropped to less than 18 percent.

On the North Fork, sales above $1 million hit a record high, accounting for more than half of the 113 transactions logged last quarter. Deals between $1 million and $2 million, which Miller defines as its middle market, made up 45 percent of those sales.

That dynamic contributed to what Miller described as “mixed signals” in price growth on the North Fork, which saw its average sale price rise to a new high, but its median sale price decline.

During the period, the region’s average sale price was $1.7 million, a nearly 12 percent increase year-over-year. Its median sale price was $980,000, down more than 10 percent compared to the same quarter in 2025.

In the Hamptons, however, price changes told a clearer story, with the median sale price rising more than 16 percent annually to $2.2 million, while the average sale price increased 3 percent to $3.4 million.

“Product on the East End is going up in price, and part of it is price appreciation, but another part of it is that the housing stock is getting larger,” said Miller, pointing to a shift in the homes available to purchase.

Last quarter’s price jump marked the fourth quarter in a row of double-digit increases, which Miller attributed, in part, to declining inventory in three of those periods. Last quarter, the number of available homes declined nearly 10 percent from just under 1,300 to roughly 1,160.

Supply on the North Fork has also been constrained, though to a lesser degree than its neighboring southern hamlets. While listing inventory in the area rose 5 percent last quarter, it was still more than 45 percent lower than the region’s decade average.

Despite the modest increase, Miller said inventory was still “woefully inadequate for the market.”

Across the East End, the total number of transactions fell last quarter compared to the same period last year, including by 10 percent in the Hamptons and nearly 3 percent on the North Fork.