Nassau median home price up 13% in April; Suffolk up 10%, OneKey MLS says

The median sale price of a single-family home in Nassau and Suffolk counties hit new highs in April, while inventory rose slightly, according to data released Wednesday by OneKey MLS.

In Nassau County, the median single-family home price reached $765,000 in April — a 12.7% increase year over year.

In Suffolk, the April figure was $625,000 — a 10% increase over last year.

“If a property is priced correctly in this market, and if it’s staged and shows accurately, it will get multiple offers, go over asking price, and increase obviously the median sales price across Long Island,” said Kathleen McCarthy, a real estate agent with Garden City-based Daniel Gale.

In recent months, housing inventory on Long Island has gradually begun to build, according to the data.

April saw 1,447 new listings come to market in Suffolk — a 29.2% increase year over year. In Nassau, 1,102 new listings last month represented a 6.1% increase over April 2023.

“We’re starting to see inventory start to climb up, slowly but surely, and that’s a healthy sign,” said OneKey CEO Richard Haggerty. “It’s probably a little bit later in the spring market than we would typically see, but we are definitely seeing an increase in the number of new listings.”

Inventory is likely the primary metric driving up market prices, said Jonathan Miller, who tracks it quarterly as CEO of Manhattan appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

“You have all these record and near-records,” Miller said. “What is causing this, is the dearth of supply.”

For the first quarter of 2024, Miller calculated a combined housing inventory in Nassau and Suffolk of 3,903, including condos and single-family homes and excluding Hamptons and North Fork properties.

“That was the second-lowest in history, and my history goes back to 2003,” Miller said.

Per Miller’s records, inventory over the past 21 years was at its height in the second quarter of 2008, when there were 26,145 available properties; now, there are fewer than 4,000. Compared with the first quarter of 2020, which was the final pre-pandemic quarter, Miller said today’s inventory number was 53.2% lower.

“Prices seem to be defying gravity, even though mortgage rates are more than double [what they were pre-pandemic],” Miller said. “That’s because inventory is so low.”

The market share of bidding wars — properties that closed in the first quarter that were higher than the asking price — was 48.6%, Miller said.

“So basically, one out of every two sales sold for more than the ask,” Miller said. “That exemplifies how tight the market is, and that’s why prices are rising across the board.”

Within five days of listing a four-bed, two-bath home in Stony Brook for a client, Daniel Gale agents Holly Brainard and Michael O’Dwyer received 25 offers. Listed for $665,000, the house is pending sale for at least $100,000 over asking price, O’Dwyer said.

“We had a line out the door for that open house, it was like during COVID,” Brainard said. O’Dwyer estimated there were 200 people in and out of the house in two hours.

This level of demand for a house of desirable size, location and condition is indicative of continually low supply, especially of homes at a similar price point.

“We still have a major inventory problem,” Brainard said.

But many homeowners are holding onto property for one simple truth, O’Dwyer said.

“There’s nowhere for the sellers to go, unless they already own a house,” he said. “These people were moving out of state and they found a house, so they were in a position to definitely sell.”

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.