LI home sales stall in Nassau and Suffolk, but prices rise across Island

Long Island’s housing market hit the brakes hard in April, with sales falling sharply as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

The number of closed sales fell by 31.5% in Suffolk County and almost 44% in Nassau County last month compared with the previous April, OneKey MLS reported Thursday. New contract signings plummeted year-over-year by 62% in Suffolk and nearly 70% in Nassau, the listing service reported.

Despite the falloff in sales, prices jumped in both counties as buyers competed for a scarce supply of homes. In Suffolk, homes sold for a median price of $425,000, up 11.8% from a year earlier.  The median price in Nassau increased by 11.4% annually, to $562,500, according to OneKey, a multiple listing service formed in March by the Long Island Board of Realtors and the White Plains-based Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors.

Real estate brokerages and other nonessential businesses were ordered to shut down on March 22 to slow the spread of the coronavirus. On April 2, the state permitted real estate agents, inspectors and appraisers to resume work, but only in their offices or over the internet.

“The market is just not functioning on all its cylinders,” said Robert Korber, a real estate agent with Douglas Elliman in Dix Hills. But Korber said once real estate agents are allowed to resume in-person work with safety precautions, sales are likely to rebound, especially since interest rates are so low.

The average home loan rate was 3.28% this week, down 0.79 percentage point from a year earlier, mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported.

“The market is going to be strong when it comes out of this,” Korber said. “This was an artificially suppressed market, and the sooner that we get past this the sooner the market will recover.”

The number of homes listed for sale dropped by about 24% in both counties compared with the previous April, listing service figures show. At the current pace of sales, it would take six months to sell all the homes listed in Suffolk and eight months in Nassau.

Long Island’s housing market could end up getting a boost from New York City residents moving east for more space and less congestion, Korber predicted.

“The higher end is actually going to do better when we come out of this because so many people are migrating from west to east,” he said.

Many prospective homebuyers on Long Island have held onto their jobs despite the pandemic's impact on the overall economy, said George Castera, broker with Castera Realty Corp. in Freeport. 

The nation's unemployment rate soared to 14.7% in April, the highest since the Great Depression. However, the job losses seem to be hitting harder among Long Islanders who rent, rather than those who are seeking to buy, Castera said. 

"The reason sales have slowed is lack of access to properties," he said. "It’s not for lack of buyers’ interest."

Even once restrictions on sales activity ease, though, some sellers might hesitate to admit would-be buyers to their homes, since many people fear another wave of infections, he said. 

"It’s going to be a while before things begin to get back to some sort of semblance of normal," Castera said. "It’s still left up to the seller and how comfortable and safe the seller feels."

By Maura McDermott

maura.mcdermott@newsday.commauramcdermott

Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.