Though improving over the last two months, Long Island home sales continue to lag behind the last couple of years, as home prices also weaken.
There were 2,449 homes contracted for sale in Nassau and Suffolk counties in March, according to preliminary numbers from OneKey MLS. That’s an increase of 28.9 percent from the previous month, but still 16.2 percent fewer than the 2,920 pending home sales recorded in March 2022, and 26 percent fewer than the 3,312 pending sales from March 2021.
Long Island pending home sales have now seen year-over-year declines for the last 21 months. In the first quarter of this year, pending home sales are down 17.5 percent from Q1 2022, falling from 7,043 to 5,810.
Home prices have been trending lower. The median price of closed home sales in Nassau last month was $645,000, slightly higher than the $640,000 median price in February, but down from the $650,000 median recorded in March 2022.
The median price of closed home sales in Suffolk in March was $515,000, a drop of 3.5 percent from the $533,500 median price of the previous month, and down 2.6 percent from the $528,250 median price recorded in March 2022.
Meanwhile, the still-low number of available homes for sale is keeping prices from falling even faster. There were 4,728 Long Island homes listed for sale with OneKey MLS—2,291 in Nassau and 2,437 in Suffolk—as of Thursday. That’s down slightly from the 4,819 homes that were listed for sale at the end of February, and fewer than the 4,853 homes listed for sale at the end of March 2022.
Mortgage rates have drifted lower in the last couple of weeks. The average rate in New York is currently about 6.3 percent for a 30-year fixed loan, down from around 7 percent at the beginning of March.
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Image and article originally from libn.com. Read the original article here.