Queens home sales dropped 27.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006 to the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a new report from brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman (DOUG) and research firm Radar Logic. Sales also dropped from the third quarter 28 percent, suggesting that the largely suburban borough is mimicing much of the nation rather than its fellow boroughs to the west and south, Manhattan and Brooklyn.
“The takeaway point is that the markets we covered here are essentially suburban markets, so the patterns here are more consistent with suburban markets across the country,” said Jonathan Miller, executive vice president of Radar Logic and the author of the report, which also covered much of Nassau and Suffolk counties. “If you look at the three macro markets, they all showed declines… The reasons are rising inventory and cramping affordability, and the credit-tightening over the summer probably played a role."
The median home sales price in Queens fell 5.2 percent to $460,000 in the last quarter of 2007 from the same period in 2006. At the same time, the inventory of unsold homes on the sales market increased year over year 53.4 percent and quarterly over 11 percent.
The average sales price there in the fourth quarter was $496,533, up slightly from both the quarter and the year before.
