The latest news about the median price of houses on Long Island from OneKeyMLS was breathtaking — record highs were reached.
The median sale price for a single-family house in Nassau County in July was $860,000, according to OneKeyMLS, the ninth-largest multiple listing service in the United States. That’s up from $805,000 a year ago. In Suffolk County, the median price in July was $702,000, up from $659,000 a year ago.
How can people afford a house for $860,000 in Nassau or $702,000 in Suffolk?
The bankrate.com Mortgage Calculator says that with 10% down, the monthly payment on a 30-year mortgage with 6.4% interest for an $860,000 house is $4,326. Add on property taxes and homeowners insurance, that means well over $5,000 a month, more than $60,000 a year. As to a $702,000 house in Suffolk, the calculator says that with 10% down the monthly payment on a 30-year mortgage with 6.4% interest is $3,972. Add on property taxes and homeowners insurance, and it would be well more than $4,500 a month, over $48,000 a year.
When I’ve discussed the price of housing on Long Island — a crisis — with my students at SUNY Old Westbury, their faces reflect deep anxiety for their future.
They are shocked when I relate some personal housing history.
The first place my wife and I lived on Long Island was, in 1961, a basement apartment in Hempstead with a rent of $50 a month. Then in 1962 we rented a cottage in Islip for $75 a month. Then, with our first child, we rented a house in Brentwood for $125 a month.
As to purchasing a house, after I got a reporter’s job at the original Long Island Press in 1964, we figured we could afford a seven-room, two-bathroom house in Sayville — for $19,000.
OK, there’s been inflation affecting everything, but the rate of inflation in the United States between 1960 and 2025 increased by 10 times. And 10 times $19,000 is considerably less than the new median house price in Suffolk of $702,000.
In 1964, we moved to Sag Harbor and with the money from selling the Sayville house for $39,000, bought a century-old saltbox house for $45,000. We could have bought a house in Sag Harbor for less — the average price was $39,000 in those days.
On the East End, house prices are far higher than in Nassau and western Suffolk. The median list price for a house today in Sag Harbor, according to Zillow online, is $2.8 million. Ten times $45,000 is $450,000 — not even close to $2.8 million.
This price for a house on the East End is beyond breathtaking.
Thankfully, there are all kinds of initiatives on Long Island these days to try to provide for affordable housing. But even with help with down payments and other efforts to aid people pay for housing, astronomical costs are faced. It’s an uphill struggle. There are initiatives to provide a wider variety of housing types, important and needed, including what are being called “accessory” dwellings, a second smaller residence sharing a building lot with a primary home.
It’s not just my students who are frightened about their housing future. So much needs to be done about this crisis.
Karl Grossman is an investigative journalist and professor of journalism.
