Suffolk homes that sold for $450,000 or less in February

In his ten years selling houses, Michael Hejmej has seen multiple iterations of the Long Island housing market.

"There's a new bottom every year that I do this," said Hejmej, of Signature Premier Properties. "That bottom that used to be the $200,000 houses, they're the $400,000 houses now."

One Key MLS reported the median sale price for a single-family home was $680,000 in Suffolk County for February. The figure represents a $10,000 increase over the same from January, according to the multiple listing service that covers Long Island.

"You'll be lucky to get anything, shopping right now," Hejmej said. "All my buyers right now are getting outbid by tens of thousands of dollars on every single house that we're going for."

But some houses do still sell for their asking price, and buyers willing to make compromises can still find homes at a sub-median price point. Newsday spoke with the agents who sold each of three Suffolk County homes that sold for below the area's median sales price in February.

This three-bed, one-bath ranch sold for the asking price —an anomaly in a real estate market rife with bidding wars.

"Somebody looked at it about 30 minutes after it was listed, and that was the offer that was made and that was ultimately accepted," said Keller Williams agent William Ostrow, who co-listed the property with his wife Glenda Alvarado-Ostrow.

The 1,046-square-foot house had been well-maintained, William said, and had a large dining room, kitchen with quartz countertops and bathroom with a rain shower. Taxes on the property, which includes a fenced backyard, total $7,102.

"There were a lot of showing requests still coming in five or six days after the accepted offer was made, but the seller wanted to move forward with this offer instead of trying to maybe get a few thousand dollars more," William said.

The home does not have a second bathroom, a finished basement or a garage. Homes with these features can typically surpass the $500,000 price point, William said.

While William said it is possible to find some homes below the median price, he recommends moving quickly in the sub-median price range.

Situated at the very back of the lot, nearly grazing a wooden fence, this two-bed, one-bath ranch in Sound Beach has no backyard.

"Anything selling below the median, I mean there's probably one or a couple of things that will deter people," said Hejmej, who sold the property for his clients in February. "This one, for example, didn't have a backyard at all, and that really turned away a lot of people."

Though many of his interactions as an agent involve a bidding war now, this property sold for the asking price, he said. The house covers fewer than 1,000 square feet, Hejmej said.

Many of the home's features have been updated over the past two years, Hejmej said, including the roof and gutters. The house has oil and forced air heating systems and does not have central air conditioning.

"The people that were okay with not having a backyard actually got a pretty good deal on the house, because it was all renovated," Hejmej said.

Taxes on the property, which falls within the Rocky Point Union Free School District, total $7,517.

For others looking to buy a home below the median price, Hejmej is not optimistic.

"They're going to have to be okay with taking something that maybe everyone else doesn't want," he said.

This two-bed, one-bath house in Centereach was "distressed," said real estate broker Walter Florian, of Found It LLC.

"We do our best job to sell a property for the most that we can get for it, because we work for the sellers," Florian said. "We marketed it for $400,000, and we kept on getting offers that were below the price."

Inside, Florian said, there were broken tiles and emerging mold, and cabinets appeared a few decades old. The house totaled 702 square feet, he added.

Eventually, the seller accepted an offer lower than asking, Florian said. Taxes on the property, which falls within the Middle Country Central School District, total $4,902.

The home does not have central air conditioning and is heated by oil and baseboard systems. There is no garage.

Generally, to find a Long Island home below the median price, Florian said prospective buyers have to focus on certain geographic areas.

"My brokerage is located in Mastic Shirley," he said. "Even the prices that we're selling houses for... everything that I'm selling right now is over [$500,000]."

By Arielle Dollinger

arielle.dollinger@newsday.com@aridollinger

Arielle Dollinger joined Newsday as a staff reporter in 2022. Previously, she covered local and national news as a freelancer for The New York Times, Newsday and other outlets.