Bidding wars drive Long Island home prices to new highs

Listings plummet in Hamptons, North Fork; half of suburban sales above ask

Bidding wars occurred in 35 percent of North Fork home sales. (iStock)
Bidding wars occurred in 35 percent of North Fork home sales. (iStock)

As in similar markets, bidding wars drove up second-quarter home prices in Long Island’s suburbs as well as in its summer communities.

In Nassau and Suffolk counties, not including the Hamptons and North Fork, 46 percent of all homes that sold in the second quarter went above the asking price according to Douglas Elliman’s quarterly report by appraisal firm Miller Samuel. In the Hamptons, 21 percent did.

The high demand drove housing prices to all-time highs. The median price for a home on Long Island — excluding its two forks — increased 18 percent annually to $555,000, and 30 percent in the Hamptons to $1.4 million.

Bidding wars occurred in 35 percent of North Fork home sales, the second-highest of any quarter in five years. Median sale price rose by 33 percent annually to $790,000.

“In the last year there’s been a rapid ascent in prices driven by heavy sales volume and a sharp decline in listing inventory,” said Jonathan Miller, who authored the report.

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Listings in the Hamptons and North Fork fell to the third lowest the areas have ever seen.

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In North Fork, 155 listings remain, a 42 percent drop from a year ago. It would take 2.7 months to sell them all at the current rate, which would be 53 percent faster than last year.

Only 1,081 listings were left in the Hamptons, a 33 percent decline since lockdown and the largest annual decrease the area has seen in 14 years. Selling them at this pace would take only 4.8 months, the quickest since 2006.

The rest of Long Island had 6,754 homes available, a 22 percent increase from the previous quarter’s all-time low of 5,532 listings, but still extremely few by historical standards. Thirteen years ago there were 26,145 homes available this time of year.

Sales, however, kept coming: North Fork saw 175 transactions, just above the 10-year second-quarter average of 163.

The Hamptons saw 675 sales close in the second quarter, up 60 percent from a year ago, when home showings were banned and most indoor workplaces closed for much of the quarter. Home sales of more than $1 million accounted for 55 percent of deals, the highest in more than a decade.

The rest of Long Island saw 15,482 sales close in the second quarter, a 50 percent increase from last year. It took only an average of about 60 days for deals to close, the fastest Miller Samuel has recorded in 19 years of tracking.