West Babylon, NY – The Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, Inc., (MLSLI) released March 2008 home figures reporting a $409,000 closed median home price for Long Island. This figure represents an 8 % decline from last March’s closed median of $445,000. The median contracted price for Long Island was reported at $405,000, also representing an 8 % drop from a year ago.
Breaking out the figures by county, Nassau County reported a closed median home price of $445,000, 5 % less than a year ago when it was reported at $470,000. Suffolk County reported a closed median home price in March 2008 of $365,000, which represents a 7% decrease from a year prior, when the closed median price was $394,000. Queens County experienced the largest drop in terms of closed median home prices in March with a reported figure of $420,000. This figure represents a 16 % decrease from March 2007. Joseph E. Mottola, MLSLI CEO said, “The market continues to show signs of adjusting.” Mottola says, “The increase in the number of sales in contract was significantly more than in February, which indicates buyers are acting upon prices that are gradually being refined by sellers, meeting somewhere in the middle.” Moreover, Mottola points out that the value of unsold inventory in March was $475,000, which is less than a year ago, but is not much different than February. He concludes that this figure reinforces the reality that sellers are being more realistic in their asking prices.
MLSLI reported 35,209 available residential properties in March 2008. Monthly inventory levels continue to remain between 30,000 to 35,000 over the past year.
