At last report, Long Island home sales were heavy and listings were light, sparking bidding wars that drove prices to all-time highs. When the run-up would end, no one knew. But now we know this much: It wasn’t in the third quarter.
In Nassau and Suffolk counties, excluding the Hamptons and the North Fork, average and median home prices rose to their highest levels in nearly two decades, according to Douglas Elliman’s quarterly report by appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
The median sale price for a home hit $585,000, up 17 percent from a year ago when home buying in the suburbs was at a frenzy, and up 24.7 percent from two years ago, before the pandemic. It was the sixth quarter in a row that the median price set an all-time record.
The median sale price on the North Fork surged to the second-highest mark in history at $800,000. Home prices in the Hamptons also neared record highs, with the median price rising 8.3 percent from last year to $1.3 million. That’s 51.7 percent more than in 2019.
Prices rose across Long Island in part because the number of homes available fell to all-time lows. Not including the Hamptons and the North Fork, only 6,615 listings were available, the third-lowest since tracking began in 2003. (For comparison, the record for supply was set in the second quarter of 2008 when the housing market was crashing and mortgage lenders were going bust: 26,145 homes were for sale.)
Supply in the Hamptons is also critically low, with 1,081 homes available. The same goes for the North Fork, which had only 124 homes on the market.
“When there’s a lack of supply, it wreaks havoc on housing metrics,” said Jonathan Miller, who authored the report.
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The low inventory has depressed sales activity. In the Hamptons, sales fell to 397, a 35 percent decrease year-over-year. The North Fork had 190 sales in the quarter, down 20 percent.
The rest of Long Island, however, saw sales activity increase to the third-highest level in two decades. Closed sales numbered 9,228, a 29 percent increase from last year. A record-high 55.8 percent of closed sales were for more than the last asking price.
Among Hamptons sales, about one in four was above the last asking price, and one in 10 exceeded $5 million — both records.
Buyers snatched up Long Island homes faster than ever, as the average time on the market was just 45 days.