Mixed Bag on Area Median Home Prices
CARRIE MASON-DRAFFEN

Median home prices in Nassau County and Queens dropped from November to December, but real estate agents continued to find good news in the housing market.

The median price in Nassau last month was $470,000, compared with $485,000 in November, and in Queens it was $477,500, compared with $505,000, according to the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island. Suffolk's median price rose, however, from $395,000 in November to $398,600 last month.

Median means that half of the homes are above that price and half are below it.

Compared with December 2005, median prices in Suffolk and Queens a year later were the same or higher. A home in Suffolk was basically unchanged -- $398,600 in December 2006 compared with $400,000 in December 2005 -- and Queens was 3.8 percent higher -- $477,500 compared with $460,000. In Nassau, however, the median price fell 2.6 percent, to $470,000 in December 2006, from $482,000 a year earlier.

Real estate agent Robin DiGirolamo, sales manager in the Dix Hills-Commack office of Prudential Douglas Elliman, said the market in her area continued to be strong. She said sellers have had a chance to adjust to the declining values. And buyers who were waiting for even bigger declines have jumped back into the market.

"The buyers are saying that this is as good as it's going to get right now," DiGirolamo said. "And sellers that are realistic will always sell their homes."

Inventories, another measure of the strength of a market, jumped 31 percent in Suffolk, to 11,418 homes in December 2006, from 8,730 in December 2005. In Nassau, the number of houses on the market rose 32 percent, to 7,842 from 5,949. Inventories rose 26 percent in Queens to 8,186, from 6,522.