GoldenRod
10 years on LIF!
Member since 11/06 26792 total posts
Name:
Shawn
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LI homes' median closing prices drop 10 percent
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzhome2112380059jan21,0,7314570.story
BY ELLEN YAN | [email protected]
10:58 PM EST, January 20, 2009
Median closing prices on Long Island fell 10.2 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the same time in 2007, said Miller Samuel, a Manhattan-based appraiser.
The median closing price was $377,000, down from $420,000 a year ago and down 9.2 percent from the third quarter's median of $415,000, according to the report, commissioned by Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, headquartered in Manhattan. Median means that half the sales were more and half were less.
In Queens, the fourth-quarter median closing price held steady from the third quarter, going from $400,000 to $400,001, but fell 11.4 percent from the last quarter in 2007, when the median was $451,250, figures show.
"The biggest problem on Long Island is not the market, it's the credit," said Dottie Herman, Prudential's president and chief executive. "I think in Queens, the same thing. If you have credit opening up, you will have the first-time-buyer market on fire, and I think that's how this market is going to come back. It's not going to come back through the high end."
Last year, one big question was whether the local median closing prices would fall under $400,000.
This year, Herman and others said they're waiting to see whether Barack Obama, sworn in Tuesday as president, can restore confidence to the markets and implement policies that would repair the economy.
The past year has also seen a deepening of price discounts. Last quarter on Long Island, the closing price was about 7.1 percent off the list price discount, the report said. In the third quarter, it was a 6.4 percent discount, the data shows, and a year ago it was 5.6 percent off the list price.
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