LI home prices hit new highs amid scant supply | Long Island Business News

Long Island home prices hit record highs again last month as limited inventory and higher mortgage rates slowed sales. 

The median price of closed home sales in Nassau County climbed to $733,550 in September and the median price of closed sales in Suffolk County reached $590,950, according to preliminary numbers from OneKey MLS. Home prices have now set new high-water marks for each of the last three months. 

Real estate brokers say those all-time high prices can be directly attributed to the limited number of homes on the market, as listing inventory remains at historically low levels. 

There were 5,095 Long Island homes listed for sale with OneKey MLS as of Tuesday, down 24.7 percent from the 6,760 homes listed for sale at the end of Sept. 2022 and 28 percent fewer than the 7,075 homes listed for sale in Sept. 2021. 

Higher mortgage rates have been one of the biggest factors in the low inventory of available homes for sale, as most homeowners have mortgages at much lower rates and don’t want a higher monthly payment for their next home. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage in New York this week is 7.8 percent, according to bankrate.com, more than double the rate of 18 months ago and the highest rate since 2000. 

Home sales activity continues to lag thanks to the low inventory and high mortgage rates and is the slowest it’s been since 2014. 

There were 1,941 homes contracted for sale last month in Nassau and Suffolk counties, that’s down 11.1 percent from the 2,183 homes contracted for sale in Sept. 2022 and 33.7 percent fewer than the 2,929 Long Island homes contracted for sale in Sept. 2021, according to OneKey MLS. 

In the first nine months of the year, there were 19,156 Long Island homes contracted for sale, a drop of 15.2 percent from the 22,597 pending home sales in the first nine months of 2022, and 31.2 percent fewer than the 27,874 pending sales from January through September of 2021.