LI housing market slows as sales and prices retreat

The Long Island housing market continued to cool off last month, as higher mortgage rates chilled sales and prices. 

There were 2,110 Long Island homes contracted for sale in October, down 8 percent from the 2,292 pending sales in the previous month and a drop of 29.1 percent from the 2,976 homes that were contracted for sale in Oct. 2021, according to preliminary numbers from OneKey MLS. 

Home sales on Long Island have seen year-over-year declines since the pandemic buying frenzy began to calm in the second half of 2021. There were 24,785 homes contracted for sale in Nassau and Suffolk counties in the first 10 months of this year, a 19.6 percent drop from the 30,839 pending sales in the first 10 months of 2021. 

The gross closing volume of Long Island home sales from January through October this year was $18.538 billion, a decrease of more than $1.17 billion from the gross closing volume of $19.71 billion recorded in the first 10 months of 2021. 

Home prices have been falling. The median price of closed home sales in Nassau last month was $675,000, a drop of $20,000 from the $695,000 median price in September and the lowest median price since the $668,000 median recorded in April. 

In Suffolk, the median price of closed home sales last month was $550,000, the same as September’s median and the lowest median price since April’s median of $540,000. 

Still, Long Island home prices are higher than they were a year ago. Nassau’s median price of closed home sales last month is 3.8 percent higher than the $650,000 median recorded in Oct. 2021. Suffolk’s median price of closed home sales last month is 6.2 percent higher than the $517,250 median recorded in Oct. 2021. 

While mortgage rates are hovering around 7 percent and more than double what they were a year ago, they haven’t impacted prices as much as expected because inventory remains historically low. There were 6,648 homes listed for sale with OneKey MLS—3,061 in Nassau and 3,587 in Suffolk—as of Monday, which is down 1.5 percent from the 6,748 homes that were listed for sale at the end of September.