Long Island And Queens- Home Price Drop

Local home prices keep falling

BY ELLEN YAN | Newsday

The median closing price fell to $376,500 for Long Island and Queens last month, down from $421,000 a year ago and $385,000 in October, according to the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island.

The November drop represents a 10.6 percent decrease from a year ago and a 2.3 percent decrease from October, the data shows.

"The good news is things are selling but prices have dropped," said Michael Azzato, associate broker at Century 21 Family Realty in Northport. "The buyers are making lowball offers, but I always tell homeowners a low offer is better than no offer. At least if they make a low offer, it opens up negotiations."

He recounted a listing that's had little success attracting its asking price: a Brightwaters home bought for $500,000 in 2005 and on the market for a year now at $399,000. "The only offer I've had on the house is two fifty," Azzato said.

Drops in median closing prices are expected to continue as a number of factors grows stronger in the next few months: lack of confidence in the real estate market, falling property values due to nearby foreclosures, more auctions of foreclosures and more sales by troubled borrowers, agents said.

Azzato said one new component driving prices down is the way house hunters shop - more have buyers' agent contracts, which means the agent represents them instead of the sellers, which has traditionally been the way the real estate market operates.

"If they're representing the buyer, not the homeowner, they can say 'Hey, I found out the person might have a problem, and maybe we can get this for a lot less,' whereas if they were just working with a buyer not under contract, they cannot disclose that," Azzato said. "All the buyers I work with are under contract."

So far this year, about $10.6 billion in gross sales have been recorded, down almost 23 percent from the $13.7 billion in November 2007, according to data from the MLS of Long Island.

Posted in: Long Island And Queens- Home Price Drop