Long Island: Home prices soar for 7th straight year
Long Island home prices saw double-digit gains for the seventh straight year in 2005, according to the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, but that streak could soon be over.
The average sale price of existing homes in Suffolk jumped 11.1 percent in 2005 to an average of $446,944. Nassau’s home prices saw similar gains, increasing 11 percent with to a record-setting average price of $601,192, according to MLSLI.
The Island average, which includes Queens, was $498,896, up 12.3 percent from a year earlier. In 2003, the average was $393,425.
But these wallet-fattening gains are probably over, said Joseph E. Mottola, chief executive officer of MLSLI and the Long Island Board of Realtors. Prices stabilized toward the end of 2005 and, for the rest of this year, “we’ll continue to see price appreciation but not in double digits,� he said in a statement.
The number of home sales also rose in 2005, according to the MLSLI, a computerized network of 2,600 participating real estate offices in Nassau, Suffolk and Queens.
Nearly 35,000 sales closed, up 6.5 percent from the previous record of 32,421 in 2004.
(Source: Dawn Wotapka Hardesty, Long Island Business News)