Suffolk home prices hit record in September, while Nassau levels off

The median home price in Suffolk County hit a new record high in September, while Nassau prices plateaued as Long Island continues to stand out from other parts of the United States that have shifted in buyers' favor. 

The median closed sale price of a single-family home in Suffolk County rose 5.9% to an all-time high of $720,000, according to new data from OneKey MLS, the multiple listing service that covers Long Island. September marked the fifth straight month with a new record median price in Suffolk. In August, the median was $714,000.

In Nassau, the median closed sale price rose 4.4% to $849,000 compared with the previous year. But the median deal had dropped from a record high of $875,000 in August. Real estate market analysts typically analyze the market in terms of year-over-year changes to account for seasonality in the housing market.

Long Island, along with other Northeast suburbs, stands out from parts of the country that have seen the number of homes for sale soar and prices stagnate or decline, said Chen Zhao, head of economics research at Redfin. Dallas, Texas, and Tampa, Florida were two areas that saw home prices decline 1% year-over-year in the latest data, according to Redfin.

Long Island "is one of the few places where prices are still growing,” Zhao said. “… This is still a market where you have more demand than supply, and demand is really holding on here unlike the rest of the country.”

Sellers continue to have an edge in the market but buyers have become more discerning when it comes to paying high prices for homes that need substantial renovations, said Angela Prince, a real estate broker at Weichert Realtors in Bay Shore.

“Even though we’re still in a solid seller’s market, I find that buyers are being a little more picky in terms of condition” of a home, Prince said.

She added: “I feel like we’re getting to a plateau where buyers are like, ‘Enough is enough.’”

Larry Theodore, an associate broker at Coldwell Banker American Homes in Farmingdale, said two of his recent listings suggest buyer demand isn’t slowing down, particularly in areas where there are too few houses on the market.

One house, a four-bedroom, mid-block Cape in South Farmingdale, hit the market in early September for $575,000. Within a few weeks, the owner accepted an offer for about $75,000 above the asking price. Another seller, about three miles further north near Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, sought nearly $900,000 for a more than 3,000-square-foot Colonial.

That seller received about 25 offers and accepted one more than $90,000 above the asking price, Theodore said. Both deals went into contract in late September and neither has closed yet.

"People wanted that house, but also there's no inventory," Theodore said. 

In Farmingdale, for example, there were only 25 houses on the market as of Tuesday, according to OneKey MLS data.

Theodore said he recalls times during the 1980s and 1990s when 150 houses or more were available in Farmingdale but since mortgage rates starting rising in 2022, locking many homeowners with rates around 3% in place, there have been too few options, spurring competition.

All of a sudden common categories of home sellers, such as older couples looking to downsize or young families upgrading from their first house, disappeared from the market, Theodore said.

“The only ones selling were people getting divorced, deaths in the family or Baby Boomers with no mortgage who want to move out of state,” he said. “The inventory diminished in 2023 and 2024 but people still wanted to buy.”

That trend has continued through this fall. The number of houses on the market at the end of September in Nassau was 7.2% lower and 5.7% lower in Suffolk than at the same point a year ago.

Theodore recommends buyers get preapproved by their lender and stay flexible with the towns they’re searching in to give themselves the best shot to purchase. He said sellers are largely unwilling to accept offers from buyers who make offers contingent upon selling their own homes.

For the market to shift, mortgage rates need to fall to incentivize more homeowners to move forward with plans to buy a larger home or downsize, he said.

The average 30-year fixed rate fell to 6.3% during the week ending Oct. 9, which is down from nearly 6.9% in mid-May. Still, the average hasn’t fallen below 6% since 2022.

The lack of inventory has led to fewer transactions. The number of closings fell 1.7% to 752 in Nassau and 0.6% to 961 in Suffolk last month compared with the same month a year ago. The number of deals has trended lower each year since the pandemic spurred an initial spike in home purchase on Long Island.