Inside Long Island's most competitive housing markets, and why their homes typically sell above market price

Melissa and Mike Sutter believe they've done everything in their power to improve their odds of buying a house this spring.

Since starting their search in 2021, the couple, both 31, boosted their income through promotions at work, devised careful budgets and bolstered their savings for a down payment.

But just a few months before they welcome their first child this summer, they're still searching.

One problem: They've fallen in love with Holbrook, the most competitive real estate market on Long Island. There, 82% of the houses sold between July and December went for more than the seller's asking price, according to a Newsday analysis of home sales data compiled by real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller.

That ranked first among all areas with at least 50 sales during the period. Nearby Ronkonkoma, Selden and Farmingville were also among the top five most competitive areas, along with North Babylon farther to the west.

Real estate agents told Newsday those communities in the middle of Suffolk County often attract first-time buyers with lower-priced houses. With too few houses for sale, swarms of buyers compete for deals, which has pushed prices above $600,000 in several areas where the typical home before the pandemic sold for closer to $400,000.

"This is not a story of billionaires paying above ask," Miller said. "This is people of more modest means being subjected to intense competition from their peers, and they literally have no choice if they want to own a home."

Those areas aren't outliers. Across Long Island, excluding the East End, 56.9% of homes sold for more than their last asking prices, according to Miller.

A shortage of homes for sale is driving the trend. After the pandemic, with mortgage rates near record lows, intense demand decimated the number of available houses for sale on Long Island, and inventory has yet to rebound, Miller said.

There were half as many houses on the market at the end of March as there were before the pandemic, inventory data shows. That shortage spurred competition — and higher prices. But buyers suffered a further blow in 2022, when mortgage rates doubled to more than 6% and have mostly stayed above that mark ever since.

The Sutters have felt that trend deeply as they've seen the cost to buy a house and carry a mortgage grow while they search.

"It only feels like now we're starting to approach the buying power we had five years ago, when we were making a lot less and had a lot less in our savings," Mike Sutter said. "It felt like we had the ball and it got taken from us."

Earlier this month, they suffered fresh disappointment. They offered $30,000 above asking price on a three-bedroom ranch listed for $600,000 in Holbrook. But on a Tuesday afternoon, their agent delivered the bad news. The seller went with a higher offer.

Mike tried to keep a poker face to hide his disappointment at his IT job in Bohemia. But the loss hit Melissa as she removed books from the shelves at her job as a librarian in Southampton.

"There were some tears on that one," she said.

Affordable areas often most competitive

Deals above asking price have been common across Long Island. There were 77 communities with 50 sales or more between July and December. In 61 of those communities, more than half of their sales went for above the asking price.

Data shows the 10 most competitive areas were all in Suffolk County, with four of the top five clustered in the middle of the Island.

Real estate agents told Newsday some of the most competitive areas attracted buyers with low property taxes and their permissiveness of accessory apartments  — a growing trend as homeowners look to rent them out or consolidate bills by bringing multiple generations under one roof.

The hottest areas have a far higher share of deals above asking price than the national average. Only 22.8% of homes sold for above asking price nationwide last year, according to Redfin.

But Redfin compared sale prices with sellers' original asks, while Miller's data focused on last asking price, so Redfin's data wouldn't include deals in which the seller cut their price and later received more than list price.

The fiercer competition is consistent with Redfin's finding that Long Island is one of the country's strongest seller's markets this year, with interested buyers exceeding the number of available listings, said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin's chief economist.

"That means buyers have to compete against one another, and they end up bidding up the price," she said.

Newsday took a closer look at the five communities that had the highest share of homes selling for above asking price.

Holbrook

• Percentage of homes selling for above asking price: 82.3%
• Median price, second half of 2025: $681,900
• Median price, second half of 2024: $629,500
• Change: 8.3%
• Median price, second half of 2019: $400,000

More than a dozen buyers toured a four-bedroom Colonial the Thursday night before Memorial Day in Holbrook's Parkland neighborhood. By the end of the holiday weekend, another 50 had seen the house, said Larry McKenna, of Signature Premier Properties, who co-listed the property with Missy Aronow for $650,000.

"I feel bad for today's buyers," McKenna said, ... "to secure a nice home, you're going to have to go above asking for the most part."

McKenna said Holbrook's location — in between the Long Island Expressway and Sunrise Highway — helps attract buyers, including those seeking affordable alternatives to Nassau.

"You do get more house for your money out here," he said.

Sachem schools and proximity to express trains from the Ronkonkoma hub also attract buyers.

Bill DiGiulio, 57, recently listed his Holbrook house as he and his wife prepare to retire to Maryville, Tennessee. They bought the four-bedroom ranch in 2009 for about $360,000 in a very different kind of housing market. DiGiulio remembers attracting few viewers on the family's previous house in Islip Terrace and dropping the price to reach a deal.

"That was an absolute disaster," he said.

This time, DiGiulio listed the house on a Thursday, open houses were held over the weekend during which they got multiple bids over asking and they accepted an offer on Tuesday. He expects the final sale price will be more than $50,000 over the asking price of $659,000.

"It was stress-free," he said. "We had an offer within the first hour."

The sale only made sense for the DiGiulios because they plan to move out of state, he said, renting in Tennessee while they look for houses where they expect property taxes won't be more than $3,000 a year compared with the roughly $10,000 they pay now.

"If I was staying in New York, I wouldn't bother moving," he said. "It just wouldn't make sense."

Ronkonkoma

• Percentage of homes selling for above asking price: 80.2%
• Median price, second half of 2025: $628,900
• Median price, second half of 2024: $620,000
• Change: 1.4%
• Median price, second half of 2019: $375,000

Ronkonkoma ranked second in competitiveness, drawing buyers with its transit hub and lower property taxes.

The hamlet, already home to Long Island's only major airport, has seen significant development at the $1.2 billion Station Yards site, where developer Tritec is in the middle of the multiphase project that will bring 1,450 apartments and more than 550,000 square feet of retail and office space.

Ronkonkoma's revitalization and easy access to the rest of Long Island have attracted first-time buyers seeking houses with taxes around $10,000 a year, said Bryan Karp, a Coldwell Banker American Homes associate broker who often sells homes in the area.

Ronkonkoma's high ranches in particular have become more popular "because it's great for multigenerational [households] and great for someone who wants to put an apartment in," Karp said.

The median price in the area rose 65% from 2019 to 2024, but only 1% in the second half of 2025 compared with the same time period a year earlier. That slower price growth has helped well-priced homes continue to attract multiple offers, Karp said.

Selden

• Percentage of homes selling for above asking price: 79.2%
• Median price, second half of 2025: $592,500
• Median price, second half of 2024: $550,000
• Change: 7.7%
• Median price, second half of 2019: $350,000

The only community with a median price under $600,000, Selden was the most affordable of the top five.

The home of Suffolk County Community College has three supermarkets and includes the 15-acre Middle Country Athletic Complex, with ballfields, hockey rinks and a tennis court.

Families searching in Selden often look for more space and large yards where children can play and where they will pay, less in property taxes, said Mary Martinez, an agent at eXp Realty.

"When somebody is trying to buy, the first question they ask is, 'Where are the best towns where we can afford the taxes,' " she said.

Andrew Russell, a mortgage broker and owner of RCG Mortgage in Hauppauge, said the imbalance between the supply of houses and demand on Long Island has lent itself to bidding wars. In competitive areas, such as Selden and Farmingville, he said, buyers are enticed by homes listed below $600,000 only to find they'll have to pay more to make a deal. After a few lost deals, there's a strong allure to extending yourself to a higher price.

"This might be your second or third year now trying to buy a house because you've been unsuccessful the last couple of years because of the lack of supply," he said. "That has buyers asking themselves: 'Is this just going to be another year that I'm not going to buy my first house?' "

North Babylon

• Percentage of homes selling for above asking price: 78.9%
• Median price, second half of 2025: $661,875
• Median price, second half of 2024: $640,000
• Change: 3.4%
• Median price, second half of 2019: $389,000

The western-most point among the top competitive areas, North Babylon is home to the 463-acre Belmont Lake State Park, and buyers last year flocked to its Capes and Colonials, said real estate agent Larry Gardner, an agent at Exit Realty.

Gardner, who lives in North Babylon, said he coaches buyers to brace themselves on home tours.

"I say, 'Get ready to fall in love with five houses, because we're probably not going to get the first four,' " he said.

Those repeated disappointments help fuel the over-asking price deals, Gardner said. Buyers who have lost out before are more likely to stretch their budgets next time.

One of Gardner's clients, Johnny Marcia, sits between both worlds. He's selling his renovated high ranch in West Babylon for just under $800,000, about a decade after he bought it with his brother for $339,000. Now, he has to find his next home fast to stay within North Babylon schools for his son and daughter, who are starting middle and high school, respectively, in the fall.

"It's a good market but unfortunately we have to sell and buy," he said.

Marcia, a high school Spanish teacher in Wyandanch, said so far he and his fiancée haven't been able to find a house that has what they're looking for, including a basement and a garage where he hopes to store inflatable bounce houses for a budding business. He's also hoping to find a house with an apartment to rent out.

"We're not fully finding it, and if we are, it's asking over our budget," he said.

Marcia said the time crunch has added stress.

"We love the community, we want to stay in the community," he said. "So hopefully everything works out."

Farmingville

• Percentage of homes selling for above asking price: 78%
• Median price, second half of 2025: $631,250
• Median price, second half of 2024: $612,500
• Change: 3.1%
• Median price, second half of 2019: $384,000

Long one of Suffolk's most affordable areas, Farmingville is home to the Catholic Health Amphitheater at Bald Hill and recently saw the addition of 292 new townhome-style and detached single-family rentals at The Arboretum.

Available houses in Farmingville range from small bungalows priced in the $500,000s to new construction priced at more than $1 million.

Some are built within planned neighborhoods with sidewalks while other options on larger pieces of land feel more rural, said Lina Lopes, an associate broker at Douglas Elliman Real Estate in Farmingville.

While it can successfully generate many offers, pricing homes low is "risky," Lopes said, "because if it doesn't happen, it's hard to go the other way" and raise the price.

But for some buyers, an aggressive strategy can work. A buyer offered $40,000 above asking price immediately on one of Lopes' recent listings without knowing the other offers.

"They felt they wanted to be over aggressive and just shut it down, and that's what they did, and it got them the house," she said.

The Sutters, now looking in the $650,000 price range, are realizing they may need to adopt that approach and blow a seller away with an aggressive offer.

"I kind of get the sense now that if you really love a place, if it's the kind of thing that's going to haunt your dreams, you might just want to slam it through and see what happens," Mike Sutter said. "And that kind of mentality is fueling the growth in prices in the market."

Melissa added: "You don't want that heartbreak again."