Long Island Housing Market Update – August 2026: Prices Rise as Inventory Stays Tight

If you were waiting for the Long Island housing market to suddenly cool off at the end of summer, August didn't deliver that kind of shift.

Home prices remained higher than they were a year ago across Suffolk, Nassau, and Queens, while inventory continued to stay limited in all three counties.

At the same time, the numbers are becoming more nuanced.

Sales activity isn't accelerating everywhere. Affordability continues to be a challenge. Some property types are behaving very differently from others. And buyers in Suffolk aren't necessarily experiencing the same market as buyers in Queens.

That distinction matters.

The August numbers don't tell us that every home is flying off the market or that every seller can name their price. What they do show is that limited supply is still providing meaningful support to home values even as higher prices and borrowing costs continue to test buyers' budgets.

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First, Here's the August Market at a Glance

The headline is straightforward: prices rose in all three counties, but the underlying markets aren't identical.

Suffolk and Nassau remain considerably tighter from an inventory standpoint, while Queens continues to offer more months of supply overall. That helps explain why sellers in Suffolk and Nassau are still seeing stronger list-price performance than the typical seller in Queens.

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Suffolk County: Prices Keep Climbing

Suffolk continues to be one of the strongest parts of the market.

Across all property types, the median sale price reached $735,000 in August, up 7.3% from $685,000 a year ago.

Closed sales were essentially unchanged at 1,321, but available inventory fell 5.7% to 3,537 properties. Months of supply declined from 3.5 to 3.2.

That combination matters.

Sales volume isn't surging, yet prices are continuing to move higher because buyers are still competing for a relatively limited number of available properties.

The single-family market tells the story even more clearly.

The median single-family sale price rose to $760,000, a 7.0% increase from August 2025. Homes that sold spent an average of about 39 days on the market before an offer was accepted, compared with 40 days a year earlier.

And sellers received an average of 102.2% of their original asking price.

That's one of the strongest indicators in the August report.

There's also a warning buried inside the strength of these numbers: affordability continues to deteriorate.

Suffolk's single-family housing affordability index declined from 79 a year ago to 73 in August. In simple terms, home prices and financing costs continue to stretch buyers' purchasing power.

So while sellers still have leverage, buyers are becoming increasingly sensitive to the complete cost of owning the home.

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Nassau County: The Single-Family Median Pushes Above $900,000

Nassau reached another notable price milestone in August.

The median sale price across all property types increased to $880,000, up 4.5% from a year earlier.

For single-family homes, the median climbed even higher to $911,000, compared with $870,000 last August.

And that increase occurred even though single-family closed sales declined 3.0%.

That's another reminder that the number of transactions and the direction of prices don't always move together.

Inventory remained exceptionally tight. Nassau had 2,259 single-family homes available at the end of August, almost unchanged from the 2,268 available a year earlier.

Months of supply sat at just 3.2.

Sellers received an average of 100.5% of their original asking price, and homes that sold reached an accepted offer in about 38 days.

In other words, Nassau isn't seeing a flood of additional inventory that gives buyers dramatically more negotiating power.

But again, affordability is the pressure point.

The Nassau single-family affordability index fell from 72 to 68 year over year.

For buyers, that means the conversation can't stop at the purchase price. Property taxes, insurance, mortgage rates, down payment, and monthly carrying costs increasingly determine whether a home that looks affordable online actually fits the household budget.

That's exactly why I recently wrote about how much house you can really afford on Long Island. Your approval amount is only the starting point.

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Queens: More Supply, but Still Not One Market

Queens continues to behave differently from Suffolk and Nassau.

Across all property types, the median sale price increased 3.1% to $660,000.

Closed sales declined 2.6% to 555, while overall inventory fell 3.8% to 3,791 homes.

The most important difference is supply.

Queens had approximately 6.5 months of inventory across all property types in August—roughly twice the supply available in Suffolk or Nassau.

That doesn't automatically mean Queens is a buyer's market, because the property type matters enormously.

Single-family homes remained relatively constrained.

The single-family median reached $899,000, up 1.0% from last year, while available inventory fell 8.4% to 1,298 homes.

At the same time, those homes took about 59 days to reach an accepted offer, and sellers received an average of 95.5% of their original asking price.

That's very different from Suffolk, where the average single-family seller received more than the original asking price.

Queens condos were a different story again.

The August condo median fell to $595,000, down 8.5% from the same month last year, while inventory increased 3.3%.

Co-ops, meanwhile, posted a median price of $341,500, up 2.7%.

This is why I don't like treating “the Queens market” as one number. Single-family homes, condos, and co-ops are functioning under noticeably different supply-and-demand conditions.

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The Market Is Still Favoring Sellers—but Not Equally

If you look only at inventory, Suffolk and Nassau still lean strongly toward sellers.

Both counties had roughly 3.2 months of supply across all property types in August.

A balanced market is generally associated with a higher level of supply than we're seeing there.

Queens, at 6.5 months overall, is closer to a more balanced environment—but even that number needs context because single-family homes are tighter than condos and co-ops.

So when someone asks me, “Is it still a seller's market?”, the answer isn't simply yes or no.

It's:

“What are you selling, where is it located, what condition is it in, and what are buyers comparing it to?”

Those details matter more than a broad county label.

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What Should Buyers Take From the August Numbers?

The market is competitive, but that doesn't mean buyers should panic.

What it does mean is that strong preparation matters.

If you're shopping in a competitive segment of Suffolk or Nassau, a well-priced home in good condition may not give you several weeks to think about it.

That means understanding your financing, knowing your comfortable monthly budget, reviewing comparable sales, and being prepared to make a strong offer when the right property appears.

But being competitive doesn't mean abandoning your limits.

If a property doesn't make financial sense at a certain price, winning the bidding war doesn't turn it into a good decision.

Buyers should also pay attention to properties that have been sitting longer.

The headline statistics often focus on the homes generating immediate competition. But every market also includes listings that were priced too aggressively, need work, or simply haven't connected with the right buyer yet.

Those homes may offer a very different negotiating opportunity.

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What Should Sellers Take From the August Numbers?

Sellers still have reasons to feel confident.

Inventory remains limited, prices are higher than last year, and properly positioned homes are still attracting buyers.

But one of the biggest mistakes a seller can make in this environment is assuming that strong market statistics eliminate the need for strategy.

They don't.

Buyers are already dealing with affordability pressure. If your home is priced well above comparable properties, needs substantial work, or doesn't show well, buyers may simply move on.

That's particularly important as we transition out of the summer market.

The goal shouldn't be to ask for the highest number you can imagine.

The goal should be to position the property so the market has a reason to compete for it.

And if you're debating whether to spend money before listing, I recently covered that question in Should You Renovate Before Selling Your Long Island Home—or Sell It As-Is?

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What I'm Watching as We Move Into Fall

The next few months should tell us a lot about the direction of the Long Island market.

The first thing I'm watching is inventory.

If the number of homes for sale remains constrained as we move deeper into fall, that could continue supporting prices even if the pace of sales slows seasonally.

I'm also watching pending sales.

Suffolk single-family pending sales were up 3.3% year over year in August, while Nassau single-family pendings declined 3.7% and Queens fell 13.1%.

Those differences may give us an early indication of how buyer demand is shifting heading into the fall market.

And finally, affordability remains the big question.

Prices can continue rising only as long as buyers can find a way to absorb the monthly cost. That doesn't mean a price correction is automatically coming, but it does mean affordability deserves just as much attention as price appreciation.

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The Bottom Line

August gave us another month of higher prices without a meaningful increase in available homes.

Suffolk remained particularly strong, with single-family prices up 7.0% and sellers receiving more than their original asking price on average.

Nassau's single-family median moved above $900,000 while inventory stayed almost unchanged from last year.

Queens remained more balanced overall, but even there, the single-family market continued to operate with tighter inventory than its condo and co-op segments.

So the Long Island market isn't suddenly shifting into one where buyers have all the leverage.

But it also isn't a market where every seller can expect the same result simply because prices are rising.

The opportunity—for buyers and sellers—is in understanding the market beneath the headline.

Market statistics are based on August 2026 OneKey® MLS reports for Suffolk, Nassau, and Queens Counties and are intended for general informational purposes. Real estate conditions vary by property type, location, price range, condition, and other factors.