Median home sales prices on LI up from 2nd quarter
A survey finds 48 percent of New York State real estate agents expect home prices to decline. Credit: iStock
The Long Island housing market is still correcting itself from the artificial peaks and valleys of the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit of 2010. Third quarter sales are up sharply -- an 18 percent jump compared to the same period last year, according to a report for Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate by Miller Samuel, a Manhattan-based firm that tracks Long Island home sales. But many sales that would ordinarily have closed in the third quarter of last year were rushed to earlier completion in order to make the tax credit deadline, causing an exaggerated third-quarter slump for 2010.
A year-over-year third-quarter price comparison is similarly misleading, as last year’s prices reflected a bump from the federal tax credit. Consequently, the median sales price for the third quarter is $365,000, down 3.2 percent compared to $377,250 in same quarter in 2010.
However, the third quarter still compares favorably to the second quarter of this year. The median is up 4.3 percent from $350,000, and the number of sales is up 22.3 percent, from 4,205 units in the second quarter to 5,141 in the third quarter.
In Nassau County, the median declined 2.4 percent $415,000 from the same period last year, but rose 3.8 percent from the second quarter. The number of third-quarter sales is solidly up: There were 2,644 homes sold -- a 14.5 percent increase compared to a year ago, and 25.9 percent jump from the second quarter.
The median third-quarter price for Suffolk County, excluding the Hamptons and the North Fork, was $314,850 -- down 3.1 percent compared to a year ago, but up 6.7 percent compared to the second quarter of this year. There were 2,497 homes sold in the third quarter -- an 18.7 percent increase over the third quarter of 2010 and an 18.6 percent rise compared to the second quarter of this year.
